


Stranger Times

by Shadow23



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), XCOM (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fantasy, Gen, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:32:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 63,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7200023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow23/pseuds/Shadow23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A strange cross-over between Critical Role and XCOM 2. Vox Machina follows a fallen Paladin through a portal, emerging on Earth in the wake of the alien takeover. Without allies, and with enemies about every corner, Vox Machina must brave the terrors of a new world, all the while hunting down a means to return home. Their search will take them from the skies of a conquered world, to it's forgotten depths, and people. Soon enough, their fates will be intertwined with that of a rag-tag resistance movement; one that calls themselves XCOM.</p><p>A prequel to XCOM 2 of sorts, with heavy influence and inspiration from a disastrous Long War campaign.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Ordinary Day

**Author's Note:**

> Considering the vast gulf between the two fandoms bridged by this piece, this summary should help those familiar with one, but not both of the two universes. To Critters, XCOM is a turn-based sci-fi strategy game built around leading the titular organisation to oppose an alien invasion of Earth, with plenty of character creation to make your own stories within the game, and the dreaded barb of perma-death to bring you to tears. To Commanders, Critical Role is a D&D web series entailing the adventures of Vox Machina, currently composed of seven wanders, portrayed by a range of talented voice actors, and a pet bear to cap things off. I only recently discovered the latter, and after inserting them into a campaign of the former, I now bring you this marriage of two completely unrelated, but equally cherished, worlds of mysterious adventure, desperate heroism, and daunting sacrifice.

The Bag of Holding was, much to Grog’s eternal dismay, nearing the limits of it’s capacity, and they were not even halfway through with the insurmountable pile of plunder seated before them.

‘Shouldn’t we get going soon?’ Pike asked tentatively, ‘I don’t think...’

She did not even finish the sentence, as she realised the futility of such a course of action. Grog was not even responding, having chosen the typical Goliath response to meet any obstacle with more brute force as he tried to jam another gold plated leg into bag; Vax was pacing up and down with a frown contort upon his face as he wracked his mind for a solution to their weight issue, and Scanlan was trying, to no discernable degree of success, to polymorph the unliving golden plate into some creature with it’s own means of locomotion. Meanwhile, Vex had finished strapping a small portion of the haul to Trinket’s side, amid a slightly bemused glance from her compatriot, who was seemingly undecided on the prospect of being used as a temporary pack mule; at least until they traded off some of the gold back in Westruun, but it was still not nearly enough to carry all that lay before them, and Pike could swear that there was a hint of a manic desperation in Vex’s eyes. Ever the miser of the group, it was all far too tempting to simply abandon in a hellhole they had just bled profusely to clear. Or rather, the hellhole Percy had just bled profusely to clear, and she turned her eyes back to her ministrations, muttering the sacred oaths Wilhand had instilled within her memory long ago and the fissure of torn flesh began to knit themselves back together once again.

It had all started with a rather simple request, in truth. Westruun was still rebuilding, and aside from the odd band of brigands on the road; all of whom, for some strange reason, appeared to fade away like the morning dew upon the approach of the heavily armed and experienced company of seven; eight if one accounted for their ursine companion, Vox Machina had finally managed to catch a break.

But destroying taverns, as Grog and Scanlan discovered, could only entertain for so long, and if they were breaking them apart faster than they were being built back up, it meant fewer holes to find a drink, if angry patrons did not prove a sufficient deterrence.

So when word had reached the party of a strange cult brewing in to the East supposed led by a fallen Paladin of faith, a combination of wanderlust and growing boredom had set them off on the road once again. 

And, like every adventurer in Tal'Dorei, it had not been long before the unholy triumvirate of danger, disaster and death found them. This time, in the tunnels beneath an all but ruined chapel in the mountains, still rank with the blood of the worshipers they had found there, slain in their seats; many still clasping their holy icons in the face of death, a half formed prayer upon their lips.

And so they had done what any sensible man, gnome, half-elf or goliath, depending on who fell subject to scrutiny, would do. Or just rather what any goliath with a weapon in hand and three days without the taste of ale would do: to dive headlong into the deep fissure of cracked marble and stone at the heart of the temple floor, bellowing at the top of one’s voice in the hopes that whatever lay in the depths would either flee the land; never to return, or to muster their courage, and bring their neck into a comfortable distance for the said goliath to start hacking.

In this instance, their adversaries had obliged to the latter course of action, when a steel-skinned figure had emerged from the darkness, and nearly taken Percy’s head off in the same moment. 

It had only proven the first of many, and within seconds, the company had been swarmed by a small squadron of the surprisingly agile creatures; each almost indistinguishable from a man or creature, except for the fact that their entire bodies had been replaced by cold metal. Most of brass, or copper, but most intriguingly, one had proven to be naught but pure silver, whilst two more; a towering, armored statue that exceeded even Grog’s stature, and a slightly less impressive, squat dwarf-like figure clasping a hammer and shield, were both entirely composed of gold. 

Needless to say, the soft material had provided little protection to Grog’s axe, and the rest of the creatures had proven little more than fodder in the face of the company’s growing arsenal, as daggers, arrows, maces, and a rampaging sabertooth had torn into their ranks and scattered them to the winds. 

The only exception was in fact the one that had jumped Percy to begin with, and by the time the rest of the group had taken apart the strange horde, it had already torn a wide scar across his back, dancing about him an elegant manner that might have entranced them at a time, if it were not for the fact that it was in the process of killing one of their friends. Even then it had put up a fight, hanging just ahead of the rampaging goliath, its limbs thrashing out with every passing moment, catching both Scanlan and Grog on more than one occasion as they gave chase, before Vax had finally been able to hobble it, ramming a silver blade through the joint in its leg as he rolled under it’s swinging blade. A second later, a pair of Vex’s arrows found purchase; right at the heart of the creature’s dead eyes.

Then, what might have once been identified as a fight: an elegant, martial competition with deadly results, quickly degenerated into a slaughter: a hapless, blind and crippled hare pitted against a furious titan, with an oversized axe clasped in his two hands.

It was only a full minute after Pike had finished returning Percy to a conscious state that the goliath finally emerged from his frenzied rage, leaving behind a mutilated carcass of twisted metal on the floor as he tossed the axe up to his shoulder, and sauntered over to check upon the winded gunslinger, who had gently assured them that it was merely a concussion, after the beast had violently thrown him head first against a convenient wall, with the cut on his back only proving token at best, with a cleric in their company.

So, with Percy’s health assured, economics had taken over at quite an impressive rate, as Scanlan had so wisely pointed out that metal was always a grave demand in the capital, where smiths and forges, with no local supply at hand, would pay gladly for a pile of scrap bereft of a transport cost. And no one needed further justification for taking apart the pair of golden fiends, for even if they were somehow able to weld themselves back together in the Bag of Holding, there was little to stop Vox Machina from simply cutting them back down to size.

Which in turn had led them to the current predicament.

‘We can’t leave it down here,’ Vax was muttering, his hand drawing a strange, intricate, and ultimately meaningless circle along the hood that concealed his scalp, ‘too much can happen while we’re gone. Plus we’d have to hike back out here, and there could be more those things...’

‘All the more reason for us to move,’ Pike suggested, ‘we don’t know how far these caverns reach.’

‘Vex and I can scout on ahead,’ the half-elf replied, already making his way for the exit, ‘you guys...figure out a way, I guess?’

‘We’re burning sunlight as long as we’re down here,’ Vex agreed, in a rather grim tone, before it changed abruptly to one of near ecstatic joy as she patted a gloved hand twice against her side, a low whistle at the back of her throat. ‘Come on boy!’

Trinket gave a low rumble in response, and like an oversized dog, he fell in pace with the half-elf at a gentle trot, as the three slinked off into the darkness ahead, until they had all but disappeared from sight. Not that anyone was actually looking for them; not when their payday was at stake.

‘Couldn’t we just haul it out?’ Scanlan offered, a wry grin already marking his features, as he turned to his drinking partner, ‘I mean, we’re not too far down. We could just take a couple of trips and...’

‘I like how it’s the collective ‘we’, rather than just ‘Grog’, Scanlan,’ a familiar voice intoned from within the earrings at dangled from each of their ears.

‘Aren’t you meant to be trying to be all stealthy right now, Vex?’ the Bard returned, before he cocked his head to the side, and readdressed the goliath, all but confirming the ranger’s suspicions. ‘So, Grog? Think  _ we _ could manage it?’

‘I’d love that, Scanlan,’ the Goliath grunted with a slight twinkle in the eye, ‘Thank you for volunteering.’

The bard stammered for a moment, silently wishing the company’s ranger had not so poignantly identified his plot. A gnome of his caliber, powerful as his tongue might have been, was not exactly optimal material to transport a ton of metal, particularly when placed against a goliath that could have probably picked him up in the same motion, but even so, it simply seemed  _ wrong _ to shovel another up to a task one had no intention of playing a part of. One of those odd situations wherein the founder of the concept can find no reasonable means to propose the idea without appearing the self-centered annoyance, and so they find themselves praying that the one the idea hinges upon will come to the exact same conclusion, and pose the burden themselves. 

But if some part of Scanlan had been hoping for such, he was hideously mistaken, for a goliath’s intelligence is not a trait one easily paces any degree of faith in.

Then again, Scanlan was Scanlan. He could get away with disastrous advice in the company of friends. 

‘Yes, precisely,’ he went, confidence flowing back into his voice, ‘and I’ll be volunteering you, Grog, for the task at hand.’

He spread an open hand out in a grandiose fashion, as if he were a performer at the completion of his act. Or a valet at one of those exclusive events for the rich and wealthy that the members of Vox Machina actively went far out of their way to avoid. 

‘I’m with coming back for it,’ Percy piped up, before he was cut off by a noticeable surge of pain as Pike was forced to accommodate his abrupt movement upright. When he had recovered, he went on ‘these tunnels could run for miles, and I’m not with lugging all this into a fight.’

‘We’re just interested in the gold, Perc,’ Grog replied in that deep voice at the very pit of his throat, ‘we could dump the steel.’

‘We could use the steel,’ Keyleth put in, turning the group’s eyes to her as she slid off the rock she had occupied for the last couple of minutes, still wincing as she touched the ground. She too had underestimated the strength of Percy’s attacker, and sabertooth or not, the metallic being seemed to have had little problem with nearly twisting her leg out of it’s socket after she had mistimed the leap intended to tear the creature’s head from it’s neck.

‘I mean, I could heat it and we could...we could...’ she broke off, trying to complete the thought before her eyes lit up on finding Percy’s gaze. ‘Percy, didn’t you say you were running a little short on bullets for Bad News?’

‘Well, I’m not low but I’d never say no to a few more.’

‘So could you use some of the scrap to restock?’

‘If we catch a break, definitely,’ Percy grinned. In fact, the gunslinger was already reaching to detach the tinker’s kit at the base of his torso, when Vax broke into all of their ears simultaneously.

‘If you guys are done, you might want to get up here, and quietly. I think we might have found our Paladin friend.’

* * *

 

For what they had heard of him; a fallen Seer; Master of the Lucidian House; self proclaimed Iron Weaver, among other titles, Paladin Anargyros was an truly disappointing figure. He fell a good deal short of the average height; a rather stout, well muscled and balding figure that continued to hammer away at something that continued to remain obstructed to an observer from the room’s entryway, entirely oblivious to the pair of half-elves that watched him from a distance. 

Unlike the rest of the catacombs beneath the tattered chapel on the surface, the chamber Anargyros had seemingly selected for his workshop seemed to be rather accommodating to human life. Or at least, the life of a half-dwarf that had rejected more than a few teachings on morality, Vax observed, as he motioned for his sister to remain where she lay; an arrow already nocked into the tested bowstring. A candle or two illuminated very entrance the twins had entered by, and with some delayed realisation, Vax noted that there were in fact no other sources of light, even as he caught the flicker of his own shadow against the wall at his back. Thankfully, the half-dwarf had not apparently endured much experience with rogues, and had not placed them too close the wall, and so it proved little difficulty for Vax to simply hug the wall as he passed the flickering flame at his feet, casting his silhouette only in the direction from which he had come, leaving no indication of his presence as he continued to work his way ever closer to their quarry. 

To the left lay a small, roughly kept bed roll, and it did not take long for Vax to note that the dwarf they sought neither had knowledge of the Prestidigitation charm their old compatriot Tiberius had used on a regular basis, nor access to a running source of water in the catacombs, given the smell that was seeping from the tattered rags. Or, he admitted, watching with ever increasing caution as the distance between them shortened with each tentative step, perhaps the dwarf simply did not care, as he spotted the alcove that appeared to function as the privy, resting a mere ten feet from the bed roll he had previously observed.

And then there was the fireplace, where the half-elf could only assume Anargyros would have prepared his meals over the blackened cauldron that had been discarded on it’s side after it’s last use, but it’s embers were cold, and did little to betray his presence.

But perhaps most disturbing was the workbench upon which Anargyros now busied himself. Situated upon a raised dais of crudely cut stone, Vax could not bear witness to the same sight the Paladin no doubt enjoyed, since the widely built figure obstructed most of the table, but what he could make out amounted to an indiscernible number of tattered sheets of parchment; strewn upon the surface like a blanket, some still slick with red fluid. And atop it, Vax could plainly see two steel plated feet; unmoving, but undoubtedly of human design.

He was still considering his chances of closing the range further when a loud trample at the door rang true in his ears, and he battled with all his might against instinct to turn and sigh, even as the Paladin spun around.

‘Hi?’

If his intent had been to assuage the grim faced figure of their obvious intent to take his head, Scanlan would be thoroughly disappointed, as the half-dwarf’s eyes narrowed to furious slits, darted to a chipped war pick at the foot of the workbench, and seized the instrument with one meaty fist.

‘Ach Vor’ Thrond!’ he bellowed, and with that, he started for the gnome, who by now had managed to pluck himself off the ground from where he had carelessly tumbled, even as the rest of the company arrived down the hallway, ready to battle once more.

‘I take it he’s not too happy to see us, Vex?’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ the Ranger spoke, soft yet with absolute clarity through the earrings that still hung against their ears, ‘my Riftspeak is a little rusty, but I think it translates to something along the lines of ‘blind, mutilate and butcher’ us?’

She hadn’t even finished speaking when she let the first bolt streak across the dimly lit room, taking the dwarf in the shoulder. It sank deep through the separated joints of their quarry’s plate, yet Anargyros continued on regardless, simply emitting another bout of unrepressed rage as his shortened legs continued to glide over the ground, devouring the space that separated him from the bulk of the party with surprising speed.

Then, as he took the war pick in both his hands to deliver an undoubtedly crushing impact to whomever stood closest to it’s savage edge, the dwarf unexpectedly pulled the pick over his head, taking aim at the largest target even as Grog readied to meet his blind charge.

And with that, he released his grip on the axe.

They were quite simply stunned by the lunacy of the dwarf as the war pick was allowed to topple to the ground in the madman’s wake, for it seemed quite inconceivable that any half decent fighter would abandon his only weapon in the face of five opponents he could see in the dark, but it was all Anargyros needed, as he stamped forward, drawing a pair of short blades from his back as he barrelled into the company, and set upon them with a manic fury. 

For a half-dwarf, he moved like a devil, and Grog’s downward stroke found little purchase other than the hard rock of the floor, before he had felt a warm tide ripple across his abdomen, where the fallen Paladin’s blade had opened a shallow but evident tear through his flesh. 

Scanlan himself fared little better, with the reach of his own long blade proving far too great for the situation, as the dwarf practically threatened to trample him into the ground; the rusted edges of his own daggers flickering with psychotic frequency as they lunged for his throat.

But the blow never connected, for the resounding clatter of hardened steel broke the battle, as the shadow of Pike’s shield interposed itself between the savage blade and Scanlan’s neck, batting the strike aside.

In that single moment, the tide of the combat turned with a vengeance, for whilst the half-dwarf struggled to regain his balance, Vox Machina wasted no moment seizing the crucial advantage. 

A cacophonous blast shook the cavern, blowing their quarry back a pair of paces in spite of his evident resolve as Percy’s bullet struck true, tearing deep into the half-dwarf’s shoulder; only inches from the thick stump of it’s neck. To the credit of his bravery, and perhaps in testament to his stupidity, Anargyros did not surrender, only bawling at the unseen sky far above through layers of rock as he snatched up the war pick he had discarded bare moments ago. But as his arm curled back to send the sharpened stake into the ranks of Vox Machina, the burning hatred in Anargyros’ eyes was abruptly replaced by confusion, and all too late, grim realisation, as his hand refused to budge from the embrace of thorns that enveloped the limb at the wrist, preventing the deadly throw.

With only a fraction of her mind dedicated to retaining the leash of thorns that had burst from the ground, entrapping the Paladin’s arm in an unyielding embrace, and as the rest of the company moved in for the kill, Keyleth was hardly finished with the forsaken guardian of faith, as he darted back from a second mighty swing from Grog’s axe, still somehow able to keep ahead of the goliath in spite of being tethered to the earth. A single sweep of her hand later, and a unnatural wind had materialised, before it’s full force was brought down upon the Iron Weaver, slamming him onto his back amidst the dirt, and holding him fast. 

Barely a moment had passed when the only partly-comprehensible war-cries of the Dwarf disintegrated into an unbound scream of agony, as the Goliath’s axe finally found it’s mark, crumpling the heavy chestplate like gravel under a hammer, before biting deep into the weathered flesh beneath.

In spite of the wound though, Vox Machina were no strangers to the denizens of the depths, and long experience had taught them to value the resilience of Dwarves; even one of only half their blood, and especially if he were a foe.

Anargyros proved no different, as he threw himself to the side with a nearly frantic desperation, evading the Goliath’s next strike, before he suddenly lurched forward, choking blood, as a familiar shade appeared at his back.

Yanking the two daggers still slick with crimson fluid from the jointed plate, Vax’ildan sensed the twist in the Dwarf’s stature, and, without any liberal degree of thought, promptly threw himself over the Paladin’s shoulder. It was the most minute of movements, with only half of it observed with the eye; the other half found in the subtle pressure he had experienced in the very daggers that had so recently tasted blood, as they embedded themselves in Anargyros’ back, and returned his every motion to the Half-Elven Rogue that manipulated their every bite.

So, knowing full well that he could be expecting a short blade to the throat within seconds, Vax reacted on instinct, using the hardened shoulder plate of the Iron Weaver to support his lithe form as he rolled over the dwarf’s restrained arm, taking him out of reach of the deadly blade. 

There was a grunt of maddened fustration as Anargyros’ blade sailed through thin air, though the half-dwarf seemed quick enough to realise the hopelessness of catching his Elven foe, so instead, he manipulated the motion to his entrapped wrist. Despite its rusted appearance, the blade sheared through the thorned binding with seeming ease, revealing a ring of blood at the lower edge of the Paladin’s palm, where the steel gauntlets ended, where the sharpened stakes of nature had dug deep into his unguarded flesh.

Despite freeing his most obvious weapon though; with an only partly responsive right hand, a pair of gaping wounds that flanked his spine, a broken collarbone, and a horrendous outpour of blood that continued from the tear in his chest, any half decent observer could note that the frenzied rage in Anargyros’ eyes was abating, as self preservation took hold. As Vex stepped out of the shadow; another arrow nocked to the bow clasped firmly in her hands, with a looming bear in her wake, and her twin brother finally in sight, the odds seemed to have finally shifted to the point at which reason asserted itself over pride, as the Paladin took a single step back. 

Then, after an seemingly endless moment, the impasse was broken, as the dwarf turned to run.

He did not got very far, before a dagger found it’s mark in one of the wounds Vax had already opened up in the Half-Dwarf’s back. It drew a sharp intake of breath from the dwarf, before vanishing into mist before Anargyros could clasp it’s bloodied hilt to wrench it from his flesh, appearing seconds later upon Vax’s belt once again as he readied himself for another throw.

But as Vax’s eyes steadied upon the fleeing butcher, movement drew his sight, and aim, off to the right, as the figure on the table; a clear definition of a corpse if he had ever seen one, abruptly sat upright, and turned a pair of dead eyes to meet his gaze.

Unlike the silent guardians they had previously encountered, this one was incomplete; a horrific, warped distortion of a human knight, as it clanked noisily to it’s feet; uneasy in its new form as it tried to balance upon legs formed half of flesh, and half of steel. 

Vax could still see the weeping wounds where the metal had yet to replace the flesh; deep gorges of blood and ichor marking the boundaries of Anargyros’ work, where he had begun the magical process of replacing mortality with cold iron, but left unfinished in the wake of their intrusion, resulting in an incomplete, demonic combination of both realms. 

At least, it might have been if it had put up even the slightest challenge to the hunters. Still adjusting it’s it’s malformed existence, the creature had yet to even take it’s third step when an arrow slipped through it’s already bleeding neck, whipping the corpse’s head about to an unnatural angle with the shear force of the impact, before it crumpled to the floor, twitching in only a vague recognition of its demise, even as Vex drew for a second shot.

But it was all the time Anargyros needed, as a dull, purple light began to shimmer from his hand.

‘Portal!’ someone screamed, and in an instant, the entirety of Vox Machina charged with a nearly frenzied desperation.

A crackle later, and the Paladin was gone; evaporating into a roiling maelstrom of energy that continued to spiral in his absence, leaving neither hair nor hide for Vox Machina to desecrate.

That is, if one discounted the goliath, who, in a mixture of bloodlust and single minded commitment to their sanctioned assassination, did not proceed to halt his onward charge, and barreled straight through the simmering rotation of energy, disappearing with all too similar results.

‘Grog?’ Scanlan’s voice was met with little reply, save for it’s own echo, and a mumbled curse from more than a few of his friends’ mouths.

‘Grog?’ Vex echoed, tapping a hand to the earring, ‘Grog, can you hear me?’

There was no response.

‘Well...shit.’

* * *

 

‘Just give it a bit of time,’ Vax sighed, ‘at least let Keyleth figure out where this bloody thing is headed, then we can…’

‘I’m going after him, Vax.’ There was a finality to Pike’s response, even as she refastened the shield at her wrist; one that Vax found difficult to argue with. ‘No offense Keyleth, but by the time you finish scrying, Grog could be long dead.’

‘And so could you if you jump through without knowing what’s on the far side.’

‘Grog can take care of himself,’ the gnome retorted in an instant, but not unkindly, as she gave her mace an experimental swing, before fitting it back to her belt, ‘I’m just bringing him back. Just sit tight, and…’

She got no further when the inevitable storm of protest erupted, from more than one source, to the point at which Pike’s head seemed to be on a wheel; snapping too and fro to meet only a fraction of each argument before being forced to engage the next.

‘Pike, you’re not going alone.’ went Percy. ‘It’s suicide.’

‘The worst thing we can do is split up,’ Keyleth agreed.

‘Sod it,’ a voice abruptly piped up, ‘count me in.’

‘Scanlan, I’ll be fine. No one else needs to put themselves at risk…’

‘If any of us were out for safety,’ the bard cooed, ‘we’d never have left Stilben. We agreed to stick together to reduce the risks we’d face on the road, and we’re not going back on that just when you think you can get rid of us, Pike. Plus, you’d make the rest of us look pretty shit if we had to go back without the two of you. You gotta...let someone else be the hero for once.’

‘Shit, I’m gonna regret this,’ Vax sighed, ‘Count me in.’

A multitude of assents chorused off across the company as a whole in short order; even Trinket seemed to be at least mildly aware of the shared intent, and offered a low growl of commitment; that is, before Vex ran a hand across that little tuft of fur atop his head he so often loved to scratch, drawing a muffled sigh of content from the bear, and ending any perceptions one might have had of him as a lethal killing machine in the moment.

‘Does anyone need anything before we head out?’ Keyleth asked, as they stepped toward the burning light; a rough line of six humanoid forms, and one hulking titan of a bear, ‘potions? Anything?’

‘About that,’ Vax put in, unease already contort in his voice, ‘they’d be with Grog. With...all our other...stuff.’

He did not need to elaborate on the latter, as his sister noticeably straightened upright, with nearly uncomfortable rigidity. Leaving the party’s gold with the most likely of their number to go missing, given past, painful experience, was an error that was evidently already wracking at her miser heart.

‘Well,’ she muttered with a grimace, ‘what are we waiting for?’

And so, as one, Vox Machina disappeared into the vortex, before it’s savage light would fade and, barely moments after the last of their number had met it's embrace, dissipate into nothingness, plunging the underground slaughterhouse back into darkness once more.

 

* * *

  
_ A Note from the Author: Before anyone flays me alive, keep in mind I still have not caught up with Critical Role. I am far, far behind, as in episode-16-far-behind, and since I’m trying to set this in the wake of whatever adventure the team currently finds themselves in to avoid an AU (a strange personal penchant of mine), I will invariably miss things. I am aware of some of the upcoming story points, and will try my best to keep it as close as possible to adhere to the current situation, but to the canon fanatics, please extend a little patience. If anyone has any advice, please do share! Always looking to keep learning! _


	2. The New World

The first thing he saw was light. Not the torrent of violet that surrounded him, that is; rather, a pair of glowing, bright, red pupils staring back from the abyss.

Bright, red pupils that were rapidly approaching him at an alarming rate, yet he felt no grip upon any such floor to propel himself out of the way, as his legs swam about in the bottomless void between two worlds.

Percy was still wondering just how he had died when a sharp tug on his arm hurled him off to the side, even as the tip of his boot touched solid ground.

Before the rest of his body followed in suit. Travelling as he was through weightless space, he was hardly braced for the abrupt change in direction, before he saw the gravel rushing up to meet him.

‘Sorry, Percy,’ Vex was already apologizing, as she helped him to his feet, ‘Jez, it’s like a - Move!’

Not quite before he was on steady feet, and certainly not adjusted his shaken glasses, Percy felt another shove. Seconds later, he felt a sharp whiplash of air burst forth from the spot he had only just occupied; accompanied by an unfamiliar screech that did not match the call of any creature he had seen or read of to the day.

Half-thinking they were under attack, he instinctively rolled forward, reaching for the pistol at his side and snapping it up to his eyes as he straightened up with a single knee on the ground, and finding himself face to face with a startled Vax. 

‘Jez, wanna point that somewhere else?’ the Rouge asked in only a half-joking fashion, as he quickly tugged his own head out of the firing line, before raising his voice to a shout, ‘we’re over here!’

Percy was still mumbling his own apology for the mistaken identity, when he realised that, of the six that had entered the portal with him, only two were in fact present, namely the twins, as he followed Vax’s voice, to spot, on the far side of the practical deathtrap Vex had just pulled him out of, a small cluster of equally disturbed members of Vox Machina, as they responded in kind.

‘Come on!’ Scanlan shouted, ‘get over here!’

‘Screw that,’ Vex retorted with equal vehemence, ‘get your arses over here! And try not to get run over in the process…’

Another of those glowering shapes shot past, punctuating her statement. Now that he was no longer in direct danger of being turned into a paste of gore, Percy could at last appreciate the actual threat that had nearly ended his life. 

If he were to hazard a guess, the shapes seemed to vaguely resemble a carriage that could routinely trundle down Emon’s roads, that is, on any normal day when a band of dragons did not decide to visit town to test the local fire-prevention services. But unlike the horse-drawn carts, these seemed to be metallic in nature, and pulled by no obvious source of locomotion, with their wheels apparently spinning onward on their exclusive accord.

It was then that Percy was finally able to realise they had in fact emerged in the midst of a busy street, upon which the said hazards had restricted themselves to, albeit with little compassion for anyone happening to jettison themselves out of another dimension into such a pathway, but seemingly content to leave them unmolested when seated atop the pavements that ran parallel to the road.

Of course, that left the unanswered question of how the two elements of Vox Machina were supposed to reunite, when separated by the impediment.

‘Aw, come on, grow a pair!’ Vex was shouting, ‘It’s perfectly safe!’

‘I ain’t falling for that, Vax! You think it’s safe? Prove it!’

‘That’s Vex!’ The twins chorused, almost perfectly as as one in their protest of mistaken identity, ‘Vax, Vex, it’s only been several years!’

The exchange continued for quite some time, until a nervous Keyleth broke into each member’s ear, with surprising clarity considering they had spent a good three minutes screaming at one another from across a busy street.

‘Um, I’m not sure if you guys noticed, but we’ve got company.’

Immediately, the argument; which at the present moment had entailed Scanlan loudly proposing the poor odds of getting Trinket onto Vex’s side of the road without producing a bearskin rug, ceased. Barely five meters away from their compatriots on the far side, Percy noted with a squint, there was a man in a ridiculous attire. It might have once resembled Percy’s own jacket, but instead, the material had been soaked through by jet black dye. Whatsmore, it looked to be uncomfortably tight; far more so than the loose fitting shell adopted by Percy on his travels that permitted a degree of flexibility in snapping a gun to point wherever it was required with only a limited time to align it. In fact, Percy was partly surprised he could breath, let alone converse from the confines of his prison, even as he adjusted the collar of the white shirt, barely concealed beneath the jacket, to speak. 

‘You wouldn’t by any chance happen to know there’s a zebra crossing just there?’

‘Why’d a zebra want to cross this?’ Pike asked, in quite a serious manner, ‘it’s practically suicide.’

The man gave them a strange look; one that contained a mixture of both confusion, as he tried to discern the humor in a joke that did not exist, and dignified superiority, as if the Cleric’s request had somehow validated his place in the world, and left him in far better spirits, in that satisfying reminder that there were people worse off than himself.

Percy was partly glad that Grog was not in fact present, since he had little doubt that the man must have belonged to one of the higher echelons of society to accommodate the attitude of the little shit, and, knowing Grog, the goliath’s response would have probably amounted to ‘start hitting’; something that, while immeasurably satisfying, was also a tried and tested means to wind up in a cold cell for the evening. Something Keyleth would know a lot about, Percy thought to himself, recalling the one time he and Scanlan were forced to sell their eternity in paradise with the number of lies they had concocted to get their druid friend out of lockup. Or at least, he corrected himself; he had sold any chance of getting into a better place. Scanlan, being Scanlan, had thrown that to the winds long ago.

‘It’ll do you better than to keep shouting down the neighbourhood,’ he snapped back in a haughty fashion, and with that, he wandered off, casting a scrutinizing gaze once over his shoulder, but only once, for he was too filled with his own doings to care much for a band of travellers separated by a busy street, and that was that.

* * *

 

‘Alright,’ Percy began, ‘does anyone actually know where on earth we are?’

They had managed to reassemble after a brief observation of the light post that sat next to the pathway imprinted across the tarmac had revealed that the vehicles in fact halted their psychopathic rampages on a red light illuminating their direction, and resumed such on the light changing to a green hue: much to Keyleth’s abject horror after she had tentatively begun her path into the street, only for the scarlet sun to wink out like a sick joke.

After Scanlan and Pike had yanked her back from certain death, and the lights changed once more, Vax, Vex and Percy had undertaken their own run, sprinting rather ingloriously across the road as if the Illithid of Kraghammer were in hot pursuit, before they collapsed into a pile on the far side; the adrenaline of the fight with Anargyros, and more recently the steel river of death, finally having drained from their systems, allowing them to take stock of the situation.

They were in a city; that much had been ascertained early on, given the degree of traffic they had experienced first hand, but it was a city unlike any they had ever seen; monstrous towers of boxy, rectangular structure, unlike the elegant spires of Tal'Dorei, threatened to envelop the dark sky itself. And for a city of such size, no wood could be observed amid the countless structures: only steel, and what might have passed for stone, if it were not for the fact that there were no discernable gorges separating the hardened blocks they were so used to spotting amidst cities; both living and ruin alike. And although the sun had long since set, the city shone nearly as bright as the day, as countless steel posts protruded from the ground at regular intervals; each apparently housing the light of a miniature sun’s in it’s own humble casing, lighting the way.

And then there was the fact that, save for a few people chattering indiscernible on the far side the road beside a well lit structure they could only assume to be the local watering hole, there was not a soul to be seen. Aside from the countless, four wheeled carriages on the road, foot traffic was barely present to begin with.

‘Well,’ Vex offered weakly, ‘I don’t think we’re in Tal'Dorei.’

‘It’s strange,’ Keyleth agreed, ‘the lights; I don’t think they’re magical in nature, but they’re certainly not fire…’

‘The lights is what got you?’ Scanlan asked, staring up at the compressed sky, ‘I was thinking about the buildings - look at this!’

They had to agree that, although only one other could appreciate the amplified perspective of a gnome, being ever so slightly closer to the ground, the structures were immense, magnificent testaments to engineering, spanning dozens of stories tall. Even Allura’s tower, although admittedly unbound by the physical restraints of the realm, stretched only a few such measurements; the product of one of Tal'Dorei’s finest engineers.

And here they had been tossed into a city of constructs that dwarfed even that.

‘I haven’t got a clue,’ said Pike, returning their gazes to ground level, ‘where we are, that is.’

‘Great,’ Vax put in, ‘because...we might be needing that, sometime, because…’

He could not finish the sentence, instead gesturing vaguely into the street from which they had emerged.

Or rather, the completely ordinary street, bereft of the swirling vortex of energy that had just recently deposited them into the firing line.

‘...we might be walking back.’

There was a moment of silence as the hard pain of reality sank deep; as the wild hope that, for no discernable reason, the portal had only blinked out of sight for the moment Vax’s eyes had found its absence, slowly began to fade away to the pit of memory. 

‘That might be a problem,’ Scanlan muttered; his face strangely bereft of the grin it so often wore in the face of suicidal odds, ‘I don’t suppose we could ask our friend to open it up again?’

‘This is bad,’ Vex put in nervously, her gaze twitching from side to side as she prayed for a miracle. Although it was hardly her intent, her right hand had begun to retreat upwards, creeping for the quiver of arrows still slung across her back. Of course, she caught the action before her fingertips brushed past the fletching, and belatedly changed it’s course, ruffling her hair with the offending limb, but her friends knew her too well for the reflex to go unnoticed.

Not that any of them brought it up; no one of Vox Machina was particularly eager to wind up marooned in an uncharted city with no means of return, as Percy reached down to ensure Ripley’s pistol remained fully chambered and holstered at his side; Pike allowed a gauntleted hand to gently tug the holy icon of Sarenrae from behind the protection offered by the plate she wore, and ran it across her fingers, whispering an old litany as she did so. Neither was Vax completely still, for his dominant hand appeared have taken to scratching an itch that seemed too close to his sheathed daggers for a simple coincidence, whilst Keyleth had dropped to one knee, and slowly began to trace a hand across the smooth ground. Yet there were no tracks to find on the clean cut stone; only nature’s voices.

But, oppressed by cold steel, and calculative engineering at the depth of a city, they were silent, and offered no condolences.

‘Well, first things first,’ Pike sighed, as she opened her eyes, ‘we still need to find Grog.’

‘How did Grog even survive that? I mean, seriously, he could be dead for all we know if he got thrown out right in front of one of those things.’

‘He’s fast enough on his feet, Keyleth, and he’s survived worse than a busy street. We just need to find him.’

‘Like, spread out half a mile down that way?’

‘Very funny, Vax.’

‘I hate to the guy who had to ruin everything,’ Percy put in, ‘but we all got out at different times even though we jumped in together. If that passage was unstable, we could have lost some time in there. And Grog was like, five full minutes ahead of us. Worst case scenario, he could be long gone if he didn’t stick around.’

‘Heck, it like you people never tracked a goliath before.’ When he put his mind to it, the bard’s voice had a habit of dispelling the worst doubts, in the beaming confidence he undoubtedly held in regard to his own capabilities, despite their usually inflated estimates in comparison to his actual capacity, but, given their present predicament, Vox Machina were hardly complaining as the talkative gnome gave his two cents.

‘Ale, and women. Women...’ he paused, perhaps for dramatic effect, but most definitely for an opportunity to steal a long gaze at one particular member of their group, earning him a withering glance from Pike.

‘...and ale. We find one, or both, and we’ll have a goliath!’

* * *

 

Unfortunately for the company, the nearest band of pedestrians lay on the exact side the twins and Percy had just so recently fled, meaning a trip back across the malicious intersection was in order. Fortunately, though, the crossing proved an uneventful one after the initial madness, and a better chance to study the pattern, like so many an elaborate trap laid to protect the old crypts of Tal'Dorei, to preserve the dignity of the dead from illegal grave-robbers, and their...sanctioned counterparts in Vox Machina itself. 

Once on the far side, it was decided that Vax and Percy would initiate the dialogue, whilst the others retained a respectable distance from the bystanders, although not so far as to prove incapable of lending a swift arrow, mace or alternate form of violence to a melee if it were to suddenly erupt; a fear that was almost immediately validated when Vax discerned, to a rather obvious degree, that the trio of men were badly intoxicated

‘Whoz ‘dis?’ One of them slurred, turned a pair of closed eyes upon them, as if the touch of any light would bring immeasurable agony to their existences.

‘Excuse me gentlemen,’ the half-elf started, raising a hand loosely in greeting, ‘we were wondering if you’d be happy to point us in the direction of a drink. It’s been a long day, you see…’

‘You want a drink?’ The second drunk; apparently not quite as hobbled as his friend given the fact he was still able to speak in relatively coherent sentences, although his hearing had apparently evaporated, for he roared loud above the rest of Vax’s inquiry. ‘Sorry lad, but it’s a secret.’

‘Come on, we’re new to town,’ Vax tried again, careful not to let his gaze remain entrapped upon any one man for too long. His blades were still in easy reach, but hard experience had taught him even an intoxicated man could move quick, as was he all the more likely to possess a quicker temper. ‘You all look like you’re rather enjoying yourselves; help a fellow out?’

‘Eh,’ the second man spat, eying him through squinted slits, ‘ah, you don’t look like one of ‘em; sure, we’ll...’

‘Shut up, Mace,’ a violent tone cut across with sudden sharpness, as the third one took a step forward. Unlike his compatriots, this one was exactly the kind both Vax and Percy knew to be trouble. Big enough to pose a serious threat to a skull if the said skull were to meet his fists, and with only a marginal exposure to alcohol, shortening his temper whilst still retaining a good potential for haste. Vax made a mental note to jam a dagger in his throat first if things went south.

‘No drinks around here,’ he snapped bluntly.

‘Your friends seem to be little...happy, then,’ Percy noted, forcing himself to retain an easy tone, ‘come on; between the two of us, can we work something out?’

‘I ain’t giving shit to the likes of youse,’ the bruiser responded, ‘you looking to make out with your friend over some cocktail, try Bar Nineteen. Otherwise, piss off home. I don’t do business with you.’

‘And where’d this bar be?’ Percy continued, ignoring Vex’s snigger in his earring. Quite frankly, he was unwilling to start a fight in a city they did not even know the name of yet, and something told him the grim faced brute was not the intellectual type that enjoyed being challenged by another.

‘Turn around and take the second left,’ the response came, as he gestured wildly down the street, evidently glad to be rid of them, ‘can’t miss it.’

‘Sounds great,’ Vax put in, immediately regretting his decision to open his mouth, as the hostile gaze switched back to his own person, ‘just, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble; you wouldn’t have happened to see one of our friends recently? Rather tall, pale, bare-chested? Bald?’

‘You poofters having some larper get together or something?’

‘What?’

‘Ah, fuck, I don’t want to know. No, haven’t seen your lover. What, you gonna kiss?’

Percy, and Vax, but only to a only partly serious degree, gave him an incredulous look, confusing him all the further, and received no thanks for such.

‘Whatever, do whatever the hell you want; just don’t pull that shit in front of the overseer. Come on, you two!’

‘Wait a second,’ Percy spoke, ‘overseer?’

But the brute was not listening anymore, as he promptly manhandled his two allies out of sight, leaving Vox Machina alone once more, save for the continued grumble of engines that continued to emit from the road at their backs.

* * *

 

‘What’re you looking at, Pike?’

‘Have a look,’ the Cleric muttered, extending a hand down the street, ‘looks like the local deity.’

‘You recognise it?’ 

Pike pursed her lips at Scanlan’s question, a frown contort across her features.

‘I certainly don’t; never seen one like that, not even in Vasselheim.’

Peering closer at the figure in the distance, Scanlan had to admit that it was a bizarre design at best, though if he was being honest to himself, he had no idea as to whether he was expected to label the intricate statue as ‘abnormal’ by the standards of Tal’Dorei’s Gods, since his knowledge of the divines practically extended to the fact that Pike followed someone called Sarenrae, and that the deity of lovers went by the name of Aleria. But Pike; their resident expert on religion, had deigned it strange, and so the bard would follow in suit. 

It was an expensive piece; of that much, Scanlan was certain, as his trained eye quickly identified the notable absence of any infraction across it’s refined stature, and was already in the process of estimating it’s rough value if he could have uprooted it and gotten it back to Whitestone, not necessarily in one piece, when he belatedly realised that their beloved Bag of Holding was still with the missing Goliath. 

Still, he took note of the details, sectioning it off in his mind to return to at a later date when the agenda took on a more economic function.

The figure might have been mistaken for a human; lean and thin as it was, and clad in some kind of ornate robe, but it’s limbs seemed nearly akin to a stick; hideously thin and frail in appearance, yet pristine in appearance. Of course, he recalled, it was a statue, built for worship, and no one would worship the imperfect. 

What was strange was that there was not one, but four of the said limbs; two slightly cocked at the elbow as they extended out to the figure’s side, with open palms facing to the heavens above, whilst the other two interlocked across it’s chest, placed exactly perpendicular to one another as if about to pass judgement upon a lesser being.

But what stood out most was it’s head, or rather the helm that encapsulated it. It was like a hood shaped of steel; ornate in design and leaving only a small, low opening at the deity’s chin level, as it bowed its head forward, apparently blinded and humbled by it’s own crown.

‘It’s certainly...strange,’ he added, ‘think these people are the devout sort?’

‘I wouldn’t bet on it,’ Pike responded, ‘not if we’re going by those three. How’d it go down?’

Her last question was directed to Vax and Percy as they returned from their foray beyond the safety of the party, who shared an expression that left, in no uncertain terms, that they would gladly avoid another such conversation with such specimens.

‘There’s a pub around the corner,’ said Vax, ‘our friends suggested we start looking for Grog down that way.’

‘He say anything else?’

‘Nothing I’d care to repeat,’ Percy answered bluntly, cutting off the mischievous glint in Vax’s eye with surprising haste, ‘let’s just get going. Faster we find Grog, the better. And we’d best be careful; locals seem to be pretty distrustful. Worried about some Overseer, or something.’

‘Is he a government official?’ Keyleth asked, a hand appearing at her chin as she digested that particular warning, ‘criminal?’

‘Not a clue,’ Vax replied, evidently displeased that they had not garnered any more on the said identity, ‘they didn’t seem all that talkative about ‘them’. But whatever they are, I’d gather they’re bad news.’

‘There’s only one bearer of Bad News,’ Scanlan retorted, a grin already beginning to spread across his face, ‘and he’s sitting right here.’

‘Well,’ Percy sighed, quite unable to stop a similar twist of his mouth as he deftly slung the rifle from his shoulder at the mention of it’s name, ‘we’re God-knows where, missing one of our party, and already in danger of getting thrown out by the locals, but hey, at least we can still laugh, right?’

‘Buddy,’ Scanlan returned, his confidence growing by the second as he fell into full stride, ‘we’re Vox Machina. Doesn’t matter where we are or who we’re up against, alright; we are the danger now.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies if this one was more world building than actual events: some answers on the way soon!


	3. Weak Blood

‘...he’s a short little bugger, maybe ‘bout that height? No, you haven’t seen ‘im either? Alright, alright, I’m going. What’re you looking at?’

‘Grog?’

Having just recently plastered a snarl across his face to dissuade the overly curious man seated in the shadowed alcove off to his left, Grog Strongjaw was left quite at a loss as to whether he was about to embrace the owner of the familiar voice, or pound them into oblivion for having undoubtedly possessed him with the urge to warp that snarl into a slightly goofy grin. It all left the aforementioned patron at quite a loss as to whether further observation would invite a bruising or hearty bear hug, and utterly destroyed any terror the goliath might have hoped to incite, but for Grog, the observer had faded to the winds of forsaken memories, as he rounded about to spot a particularly diminutive figure stride through the door, and promptly race for his leg. 

‘Pike!’ The goliath spoke, and he promptly devoured the distance between the two, before he turned his mind to slowing down almost as soon as he had started onwards. It was far too easy to forget their mismatched sizes made for nearly lethal reunions, at least for Pike Trickfoot, and although she never deigned to remind him of it, Grog never quite could forget the time he had nearly flattened their healer entirely, leaving her bedridden for a week, much to Scanlan’s dismay. Particularly since he had nearly been mugged the very next day, after a few too many drinks late at night in Emon’s streets, leaving him with a deep gouge across the shoulder that could not be immediately seen to. Or perhaps he was confusing the outrage with Vex’s reaction. In fact, the more Grog thought about it, the more definite he became that it was in fact Vex who loathed the memory the most, after she had been forced to pay for Scanlan’s healer; a mere day after the goliath had left their own rather incapable of committing such free of charge.

But it was a matter of the past, and he had learnt well from its tutelage, as he skidded to a halt, and dropped to a knee, bringing himself roughly level to the gnome’s height. Or at least, after he had doubled over a good deal until he was nearly touching the floor, for even if one were to remove the legs of a goliath, it would still take perhaps three or even four gnomes, all stacked atop one another’s shoulders, for the topmost of their number to enjoy a face to face conversation. 

‘It’s good to see you!’ he rumbled, spotting the remainder of the company as they trailed in behind the Cleric, casting wary glances in the direction of the other patrons, before realising that, aside from one nervous man in the corner, an equally troubled patron on the opposite side of the room that was taking great pains to ensure his gaze did not meet the eye of the largest member of their party, and a couple far too self absorbed in their own dealings to notice the reunion, no real threat was being posed at the present moment.

‘Never…,’ Pike started, before the remainder of her words were lost in the rapid emptying of air from her lungs, as Grog picked her up, and embraced her. Or, by a human’s standards, nearly proceeded to crush Pike’s ribcage as a whole, drawing a wince from more than a few of the party. That is, all but Vex and Keyleth, who, having already scoped about the establishment ot find no discernable stables, were in the midst of polymorphing Trinket into a mouse to avoid the inevitable argument with the next barkeeper that found them guilty of terrifying his customers, and income, out of sight.

‘I thought you guys would still be in Tal’dorei,’ he exclaimed, ‘but here you are!’

‘It’s,’ Vax begun, only diverting a portion of his mind to the response, as he tried to ascertain if Pike was in fact in desperate need of help, ‘it’s good to see you too, Grog.’

‘I’d say!’ Grog continued, all the while blissfully unaware that he had, like so many a time in the past, abandoned caution in favor of compulsion, ‘I’ve been trying to get back since I stepped through an hour ago, but…’ he trailed off, giving the half-elf a slightly maddened look, as his eyes crossed one another’s pathways, all the while beneath that wry grin. ‘Well, I’m not an expert on portals, so I kinda figured this was it…’

‘That’s...nice…’

‘Huh?’

‘I think that’s Pike trying to ask you to let her live,’ Scanlan put in gently, enjoying himself far too much at another’s expense. 

‘Oh.’ It took the goliath a moment to fully process the implication of Scanlan’s unspoken suggestion, throughout which the vice-like grip did not falter, but as soon as that much desired recognition was met, the titan did not waste another second, as he allowed Pike to drop gratefully into a crumpled heap, ‘right. Sorry ‘bout that; always forgetting...’

‘No worries Grog,’ the Cleric replied, before she took a moment to recompose herself, as she felt the cool air seep back into her emptied lungs, ‘just, just don’t run off like that again. We need to stick together. If something happened…’

She trailed off, quite uncertain as to how she would finish the statement, before eventually settling on the vague, if well founded, hope that he understood her unvoiced concern. 

He certainly did, for in spite of the goliath’s cheery demeanor though, Grog allowed a moment of solemn acknowledge to pass over his features at the thought, and he was not alone in the shared thought. Death was a constant possibility that hung over them all, and a fate that had already been visited upon more than a few of their number. In step with every one of their triumphs and victories did it lie; the doubt left unacknowledged by any of them in public, for fear that such a loud proclamation might tempt fate the strings of fate all the more, yet in such, it had become all too easy for them to forget its existence. And it could prove disastrous, for the countless challenges they had surmounted provided a large shadow for it to hide, until one day, their bravery would be replaced with folly in ignoring the possibility, and on that day, it would emerge once again, and destroy the fragile world they had built up, on spent luck alone.

‘It’s alright Pike,’ the goliath answered, surprisingly softly as he pondered the matter, ‘I got it. I got it.’ 

It was only after a respectable period of silence had passed, and after the others had muttered their own assent to the logic they had first agreed to all those years back in Stillben, that Grog finally decided to bring them back out of the mortal question.

‘So,’ he started tentatively, careful to ensure that Pike did not think he was simply attempting to change the subject in disregard of her warning,’I take it you guys found a way back then?’

If he had been searching for good news, his hopes were quickly dashed as that all too familiar question of ‘how to put this’ flashed across each of his compatriots’ faces; sidelong gazes that each seemed to point out the best person each respective member of the group thought it best to convey whatever inevitable terror he was about to hear.

Eventually, it was honest Keyleth that answered.

‘Kind of? As in, it caved just as soon as we got through.’

‘But you know how to open it back up again, right?’ Grog went on, although why he had decided to draw out his torment with false hope, neither he nor his friends knew. ‘I mean, it’s just magic, right?’

His jovial prod at difficulty of such an act managed to mark a thin smile on the half-elf’s face, but she would have to disappoint him nonetheless. 

‘I’m a druid, Grog,’ she protested, ‘the arcane isn’t my specialty. Kind of wish Tiberius was still around, but I don’t see anyway for us to ring him up, so I’m afraid we might be stuck here for a while.’

‘Let’s not start resigning ourselves to death yet, fellas,’ Vax sighed, stepping forward into the midst of the small, rough circle they had formed as the conversation progressed, ‘what about the Paladin? Anargyros? He opened the bloody thing up; any chance we could convince him to pry it back open?’

‘I hardly think he’s going to do you any favors after what you did to him, brother,’ came Vex’s voice.

‘Who said we were going to ask him? We don’t need him to want to open it, we just need him to open it. And he probably won’t need all his limbs for that.’

‘We might still need him alive though, Grog,’ the rouge in their midst responded, heading off the inevitable list of atrocities and mutilations on the Goliath’s mind, ‘maybe we can kill him after, but still, first things first, we actually need to find him. Did you see him when you arrived?’

‘Not really,’ rumbled their gargantuan friend, as he scratched his bald head in deep thought, trying to recall the events that had transpired barely an hour past with all the clarity one; who for that matter much prefered killing, drinking and the company of the fairer sex to thinking; could muster. ‘I just remember nearly being run over by some idiot in a wacky cart.’

‘What, the ones made of steel?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Yeah,’ Percy muttered, ‘we had a similar run in. So he was gone when you got out?’

‘I was kind of busy trying not to get turned into a paste,’ Grog replied, ‘I just found this place; was askin’ if anyone saw the little shit. So far though, not a hair.’

‘Well,’ went Vax, slapping a wry smirk onto his features that did not reach his eyes, ‘well then I stand corrected; we really are screwed.’

* * *

 

Inspite of his rather loud proclamation though, it did not take long for Vax to quickly bring forth a new solution to their current predicament. Or rather, a rather drastic amendment to a policy Grog had already been pursuing at the time of their belated arrival, of prying the locals for any knowledge of the half-dwarf that had landed them on a practically alien continent.

Except this time, at the insistence the more learned of their party in the matter of social graces, Grog kept the mighty war axe out of sight whilst they deigned to pose their inquiry to the bartender himself, who had watched the entirety of their exchange from afar with a gaze of nervous curiosity. It seemed, Vax noted with no small degree of concern, that carrying visible weapons on one’s person was not a common practice in the city they now found themselves in. Unlike Tal’Dorei’s crowded streets, where thieves and cutthroats seemed to line every corner, ever vigilant for the passerby that had left either their bodyguard or sword at home, the people here seemed to be fully trusting in their peers to not suddenly produce a weapon in demand for everything upon their person.

Or, more likely than not, Vax thought, the law was just more efficient, or in greater numbers around here. 

Regardless, that unspoken law also had the unfortunate effect of plucking them apart from the average citizen, since the half-elf could spy not a bow, staff nor dagger about the room, save for those currently affixed to their own forms, pruning them from the relative safety offered by the title of ‘ordinary’ folk.

Probably why the bartender’s habit of continuing to wipe down a glass that was already as dry as the desert was slowly being exacerbated with their every footstep in his direction, Vax’ildan summarized, before he cleared his throat to diffuse the situation, before the poor man either lost his nerve and ran screaming from his own establishment, or simply shattered the fine piece of glassware with his tightening grip, and slit his wrists.

‘What can I get you?’

‘Seven ales,’ Vax replied smoothly, leaning over the counter with his weight rested upon a single arm laid flat against the reflective surface, ‘and a bit of, eh, information, if you don’t mind. A chat.’

‘We...we don’t have ale, sir,’ the man responded.

Somewhere off to Vax’s right, there was an audible intake of air, and, judging from the sudden broadening of the bartender’s pupils in stark terror, Vax could only guess that Grog had allowed his displeasure to be known, to a stick of a man that would in all likelihood snap in two if the goliath even decided to uproot him from where he stood; a tactic that, whilst morally questionable, had still proven effective in persuading the unwilling manufacturer to part with their goods at a fair price.

Vax, however, was not so sure if leaving a corpse, in a city they did not even know the name of for that matter, would have amounted to the best of plans, so he moved to smooth things over, before Grog decided to seize the initiative.

‘Just any beer then,’ he put in, all the while snaking his free hand unobserved to his back, before discretely waving off any...hasty action, ‘7 drinks; something strong.’

‘Erm, how about Number Six?’

‘Six?’

The barman’s only response was to toss a steel frame in Vax’s direction. Still quite taken aback by the brusque response, and with one eye still set upon the uncomfortable employee with no shortage of suspicion, Vax tentatively turned the strange, pictureless portrait about in his hands as if it might suddenly combust in a fantastic and lethal shower of sparks and shrapnel, when it abruptly hummed to life. A piece of parchment formed entirely of what appeared to be light itself began to shimmer inside the confines of the slate, and Vax’s well founded paranoia quickly gave way to curiosity, as he watched the portrait began to move, reshuffling the shapes and letters upon its form until it had arranged a series of neat pictures, each detailing some colourful beverage, to the left of the script, and a perfectly written description emerged beside each, each heaping nearly hideous degrees of praise upon their respective drink.

‘You never seen a data slate before?’ The man asked, not unkindly for that matter.

‘Not where we’re from,’ the rouge responded, passing the strange menu to his sister to analyse, for it was a dangerous act in the midst of Vox Machina to issue any request requiring a monetary exchange that did not possess the consent of the company’s treasurer.

‘Yeah, I can tell you’re not from around here.’ He gave a short, and obviously forced, laugh at that observation, for a failure to come to such a conclusion would have probably warranted a check of any observer’s eyes.

‘Right,’ Vax continued, leaning forward once more, enclosing the pair off from the rest of the room, and leaving no means of escape for the flustered barman, ‘about that; we were sort of wondering if you’d be able to tell us a bit more about...‘here’.’

‘What, the bar?’

‘Not quite; the city.’

‘Oh, you mean District 42?’ Again, the numeric designation raised a few eyebrows, but their host, whilst not blind, neither was the most observant man of the world. ‘Things have been looking up, I guess. Well, I mean, we’re not doing any better than the next district, but hey, as long as it’s been getting better, right?’

‘Definitely,’ Vax agreed, his jaw tight as his mind continued to work at full stride, ‘better than before at least, right?’

‘Oh, aye,’ the man responded, swallowing the lure like a hungry goldfish, ‘ever since ADVENT came in, it’s just gone uphill from there. I mean, I was just a kid when they came about; twenty years passes in the blink of an eye, doesn’t it? But hey, I ain’t complaining, mate.’

‘So you think it’s better, with, what’s it again? ADVENT, in charge, did you say?’

‘Yeah; disease, hunger; all of it goes poof over what? A year? Two years? The old world had it’s head up it’s arse for too long; always squabbling and killing each other over oil or some other bullshit, until the Elders came. You want that drink, by the way?’

‘Just one thing,’ his sister put in, sliding what they now knew to be addressed as a data-slate back across the table, ‘how much is all this? I mean, I don’t see a price anywhere.’

‘Oh, right!’ A few more apologies later, and the sweating figure had returned the menu, after brushing his finger once to the side across it’s non-existent screen, revealing an entirely new plethora of data on the said products.

Unfortunately though, the only figure Vex was in fact interested to begin with fell far, far outside of her comfortable range of spending. 

‘Three digits for a drink?’ She meant to produce the query with a tone of dignified disbelief, but it came out more as a panicked, and partly furious, screech, sending the poor man as rigid as one of the many arrows that still protruded ominously from the top of her quiver. 

‘Is...is there a problem with that?’

‘I’ll tell you there’s a problem! It’s a bloody…’ she finally stopped herself, taking a breath before meeting his flittering gaze once more.

‘Look, could we, work something out? A fair exchange, before we die of thirst?’

‘Ma’am, is there something wrong with the price? I mean, is it not already rather affordable?’

Even though he could only eye the exchange from a sidelong gaze, Vax could have seen that familiar twitch atop his sister’s eye long before the flustered owner of the establishment even registered the unmistakable wink.

Sadly though, Vex’s fluctuation from nearly homicidal scrouge to a slightly flirtatious one only left him all the more confused.

‘Look,’ she sighed, fishing out the coin pouch she had relieved off Grog almost the second they had reunited once more, ‘how about six coins? For each, alright? That’s the normal price; not two hundred and seventy, or whatever the hell you’re charging.’

She produced the first half dozen discs, and scattered them upon the bar, only to watch the man’s eyes dilate all the further as he apparently completed his descended into foreign territory, and was made entirely at a loss.

‘Listen, lady, I...I don’t know what you’re trying, but I can’t accept Old World currencies; none of us do. I just need your ID chip, alright? And then I’ll scan off whatever credit you owe us, and that’ll be that, OK? I don’t deal in...what is this? Coins?’

‘They’re good coins!’ Vex tried, drawing a stifled laugh from her brother, which was quickly repaid with a swift elbow in the offending sibling’s side. ‘Shut up, Vax.’

‘Since when did you care about the quality of the coin? As long as it’s a coin, you wouldn’t care if it came out of the wrong end of a troll!’

‘Is there a right end?’

‘Look,’ Keyleth spoke, trying to cut off the tailspin of a conversation they had plunged into, in her own unique fashion, ‘we don’t have an ID chip, or whatever that is, right? If you don’t want the coins, maybe we could just do a straight trade? I mean, we got a couple of gold plated legs; an arm or two; I’m sure we could work something out…’

Apparently, the sight of a half-elven druid pulling out what appeared to be an amputated leg from a bottomless sack was sufficient to send the pitiful barman over the edge, from mildly disturbed, to a shrieking wreck, as his eyes threatened to leap out of their sockets.

Thankfully, he never quite got on to the actual screaming, for as he drew breath to condemn them, or simply to flee in terror, he had failed to notice Scanlan moving behind the bar, in the hopes of getting a quick sample of the product they were about to bankrupt themselves over. 

So it understandably came as quite a shock to the tormented soul when, upon opening his mouth to cry for assistance, no noise departed his lungs, as he was sectioned off, into a little portion of his mind, and sealed away, even as the gnome at his feet removed his hands from his leg, quite content with the domination spell cast upon a man that simply had the horrid misfortune of taking a night shift on the day Vox Machina arrived in District 42.

‘It’d be a shame to waste this expensive shit,’ the bard’s voice resounded, somewhere from behind the bar, until he emerged atop the obstruction somehow clasping not one, but five elaborate bottles, each filled with a different fluid, with a different stain colouring each murky drink. ‘A good drink always helps ya make the right choices anyway, doesn’t it Grog?’

* * *

 

Much to their collective disappointment; but most prominently to the dismay of Grog Strongjaw and Scanlan Shorthalt; the beverages Scanlan had ‘liberated’ from the tyranny of a fridge owned by the unluckiest bartender in District 42 were not in fact alcoholic. In fact, a sweet, fruity scent punched through the air as they pried open each bottle, before giving each an experimental swirl, as if it might somehow unveil if they were about to commit mass suicide by poison.

Of course, that particularly concern was not quite on any of their minds, and seven glasses were quickly poured out, and drained before any ill effects could be observed upon one another.

Thankfully, as common sense foretold, the barman, who presently stood rooted to the spot in a nearly vegetative state, as he continued to stare vacantly at the door opposing his position, had little to gain from poisoning his customers, their rest proved an uneventful one, save for a grumble or two from the two worst offenders in their company finally prompting Grog to fish their own battered cask of ale out of the Bag of Holding, as temptation proved too strong. 

Given the already strange circumstances that assailed them, the company of Vox Machina had little clue if the residents of District 42 held it improper to deal their own drinks in another’s establishment, and so the delicate task of distributing a few casks worth of the much needed comfort was left to Vax, as he began to drain the barrel at a snail’s pace to avoid the distinctive tapping of fluid cascading into an empty flask.

But the establishment, at such a late hour, was nearly empty to begin with, and of course, those that remained were far too absorbed in their own concerns to be trifled by a the shadow of what might have been taken for half a barrel protruding from a deceptively miniature sack.

‘So what now?’ Pike began, gesturing for them to cluster as one over the circular table, even as Scanlan and Grog noisily tipped their own favored glasses back and began to indulge on their favored draft, ‘...I mean, we still need to find Anargyros, but I don’t think he’d help us.’

‘Nah,’ Vax agreed, ‘you see the look on his face when we came in? Looked like he’d seen a Beholder. There’s no way he saw that dwarf before and still managed to shut up about it.’

‘Could be used to dwarves,’ Percy said, taking the time they had to wipe his glasses free of the grime they had attracted in the catacombs above Anargyros’ workshop, ‘I mean, he just might not have seen goliaths before.’

‘Ah, there’s no chance he’d even tell us even if he did see him; more likely to piss himself silly before he did…’

‘You’re kinda forgetting we got him at our beck and call right now, right?’

‘True, we could just ask him straight; see if he knows?’

However, Scanlan’s offer to confirm their grim expectations was abruptly shattered by a commotion at the door, and five men stepped through the glass doorway, each with an absurdly heavy boot fall following their wake.

Each was undoubtedly human, and heavily armored; far more so than the average city watchman one could find in Emon, or even Vasselheim. In fact, each more or less resembled a knight of House Windwalker: the oldest of the capital’s guardian orders, except for the fact that instead of the shield emblazoned by the crescent and mare of the order, each man carried a sleek, elegant, and drastically cumbersome staff that lay slung like a craddle across each set of gauntleted hands. 

It was only on closer inspection that they, or rather Percy, who then relayed his findings to the rest of the group at a low whisper; ascertained that the ‘staff’ was in fact an ornate rifle; not unlike the Bad News that still adhered to their Gunslinger’s back.

Their faces fully concealed by the helms they wore, save for the mouth of each guardsman, they conversed in an entirely alien tounge, barking and chittering in a strange, incoherent exchange, until one extended an arm in their direction.

‘Sti’kar! Mos’tin!’

‘He’s not, by any chance, talking to us, is he?’ Scanlan asked, apparently unfazed by the loud bluster of the lawman. Then again, his respect for what they represented was all too often a malleable one that faded like the morning mist when instance suited him. But it did not mean he would willing defy on in public, so he, like the rest, opted for deliberate silence, hoping the watchman was simply giving his order, and praying for obscurity as the heavyset solider advanced forth.

Unfortunately, he did not seem to be deviating from a direct path to their table.

‘Gu lin. Vash’tarth?’

‘I’m pretty sure he’s talking to us,’ Vex muttered to the bard, ‘My guess would be he’s Advent; how do you want to play this?’

‘Um,’ Keyleth began, her eyes fixed on the closing warrior as she proceeded to softly clear her throat, and affix a wide smile she certainly did not feel to her face, ‘hi!’

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Vax’s voice was barely audible, but it still carried forth to Keyleth’s ear as clear as a dagger. Admittedly, the druid had not quite intended to confirm their presence as loudly as she had, but given Vax’s preference to remain in the shadows, she was not quite prepared to answer that question head on.

‘I really have no idea,’ she shot back in a similar whisper, panic having already eroded the bright smile she had only recently adopted, ‘I’m just trying to be friendly!’

'Nii’tash!’

‘I don’t think that’s quite on their agenda,’ replied Vax, nervously casting a glance back in the encroaching soldier. Barely five meters away now, he resigned himself to their apparent course of action; the fine art of negotiation, in weaving one’s self out of a turbulent sea, save with a sharp mind tongue in place of the stars. ‘Evening to you, lads.’

He raised his half-filled cup at the man’s approach, to no discernable impact. In fact, the closer he got, the more certain they were becoming that this was a man who had grown dependent on his rank, and accorded subservience on the part of others to simple normality, as opposed to courtesy. 

Clearly the commander or officer of the outfit before them, given the rather colourful red cloak draped upon his shoulder, and the similarly hued ornamentation heaped upon the mask that still concealed his face, in contrast to the matted grey and black coat of arms that adorned each of his escorts’ forms, the man’s chin noticeably tightened into rock at their greetings, betraying the scowl that was undoubtedly carved across his face. Obviously, an idle conversation was not to be.

‘Li’tash,’ the strange warrior spoke, producing each vowel with a harshness that gave it the air of a command as opposed to a friendly gesture, ‘For mor’torst?’

Their blank stares quickly unveiled impatience as another of his flaws, as he straightened upright, gripping the rifle with even greater zeal, and angrily repeated the phrase at a much louder volume, as if it might somehow bridge the evident language barrier.

‘For mor’torst?’

Finally, Percy broke the impasse. 

‘Terribly sorry,’ he muttered, raising his eyes to the approximate line he estimated the guard’s eyes to lie beneath the unyielding plate, ‘could you repeat that?’

The scowl turned to the lord of Whitestone Castle, before it’s owner apparently decided there was nothing all too impressive in regard to the pale haired man seated before him, and turned to another.

‘Gris tor.’ It spat the words like an arrow from a bow’s embrace, in the direction of the stunned barman, ‘Gris Tor!’

‘Yes, my good man, we could use a bit of a hand,’ said Scanlan, raising his voice to carry clearly across the intervening space, ‘you wouldn’t mind helping to translate with our pal here, would you?’

The officer turned what he could only assume to be a murderous glare upon the stunted figure, although whether it was for daring to raise his voice over his own command, or if it was the galling idea that the barman actually obeyed the upstart gnome’s instruction in place of his own was entirely beyond Scanlan’s comprehension, and he cursed that ornate mask for that. Obscuring one’s eyes made the interpretation of their intentions a true bramble bush to navigate, he thought to himself, as their unblinking host finally pulled himself to their side.

Again, the soldier repeated the incomprehensible phrase at a hiss, angrily gesturing towards the seated seven with the rifle in his hands as he did so. ‘Gris tor; mor’torst.’

‘He’s asking for your identification,’ their man replied robotically, at Scanlan’s behest, ‘the one at the back of your head.’

He turned about in the same instant, although carefully so as to avoid giving the impression he was turning such upon the officer himself, for understandable fear of a reprimand, as he revealed the scar that ran a short length of his neck to the company of seven. It was a small, innocuous knotted line of reddened flesh that seemed to have healed remarkably well for such an operation; likely with the magical aid of a healer or cleric, they summarized, considering the rather negligent, try-and-forget attitudes of Tal’dorei’s surgeons where the ordinary folk were concerned. Strange then that an ordinary citizen would be able to afford such treatment, but that line of inquiry was quickly brought to an end as quickly as it surfaced, as the officer began spouting off unintelligible commands once more with a vengeance, rapping his armored fist against the table in punctuation of his instructions.

‘Mor’torst!’

‘Yes, well, I’m sorry to say,’ Vax started, his hand inching ever closer to the hilt of the nearest dagger sheathed upon his belt, in the event the worst came to pass, ‘we must have missed that memo. Don’t remember ever getting...that.’

He gesticulated vaguely toward the back of his head with the hand he was willing to let the officer observe, as the other made it to it’s objective, and slowly tightened into a closed fist about the engraved grip.

The half-elf had been on the verge of asking their, or rather Scanlan’s, ally to translate his own flimsy excuse, but the officer was already alive with protest. Evidently, he had a good grasp of the common tongue, but could not entrust his own tongue to produce it’s likeness.

‘Kor’va tar?’ Los!’

One hand detached from the blackened barrel of the rifle, only to raise itself to the officer’s shoulder line, and wave his men forth. Immediately, a new urgency seemed to seize each guard’s form, and they gripped their arms with fervent readiness, as they fell in step with their commander. That is to say, three of them hefted their weapons in a clear display of force, whilst the fourth holstered his own long rifle, only to produce something that could have easily been written off as an instrument of torture. Certainly it was far more elaborate than the tools Pike had pried out of the Emberhold fortress beneath Kraghammer during their expedition through the Underdark, and clean of any rust or dried blood that might have usually decorated such a tool, but the unmistakably sharpened spire that decorated the very summit of the device’s three protrusions; each of which appeared to rotate with careful menace as it felt the warmth of its master’s hand, betrayed it’s ultimate purpose.

Needless to say, it’s appearance did little to put Vox Machina at ease.

‘He’s saying you cannot understand him because you do not the implant,’ the barman stammered, pausing here and there to register the guard’s words as he continued to spew out garbled threats and instruction, ‘they’re asking you to go with them, and they’ll register you. After the operation, that is.’

‘Operation?’ Vax asked in disbelief, as the miniature trident continued to approach with alarming haste, ‘with that thing? Thanks, but I think we’ll pass on that.’

Another shout. Even without any knowledge of the stranger’s language, the message was clear: whatever patience the officer possessed was in grave danger of running out, to their detriment.

‘He says you must; it’s a mandatory procedure.’

‘Hey,’ Keyleth started in an easy tone, ‘let’s just talk about this-’

There was a resounding crack as Keyleth snapped back into the table, as the captain of the small band of enforcers abruptly swung the heavy rifle forward, rocking the stock of the casing into the druid’s chest, silencing her protest, if one excluded the inevitable wheezing for air that seized a victim after such a violent impact. Apparently, his patience had expired.

Immediately, the air was alive with the trample of boots, as more than a few members of Vox Machina leapt to their feet, their hands falling dangerously close to their prefered choice of arms or, in the case of Vax and Pike, actually seizing the said implements and brandishing them outright, prepared to cut down the officer where he stood if he made so much as another step towards a member of their company.

It was enough to give the soldier a pause, and he visibly withdrew, at least for a moment, before he registered that he still had four men at his beck and call, and his opponents were apparently savages wielding pitifully archaic tools of war.

‘Mor Stin!’ He spat, pointing to Vax in particular, whilst affixing an eye on Pike all the while, ‘Kor’ma’torst!’

He looked as though he was gesturing for them to remain seated, if one paired the statement with a serious threat, as his squad proceeded to take aim upon the two most serious offenders.

However, intervention came from the most unlikely source of all, as a loud clap of metal rang off the table, drawing every eye to the goliath in their midst, who, throughout the better part of the standoff, had been draining a rather familiar tankard, after it was discovered that the frail glass constructs of the local drinking hole did not quite agree with the nearly uncontrolled strength at Grog’s disposal. Unlike the others, he had not quite witnessed Keyleth’s attack, having his head tilted as far back as it was in relish, and so when he returned to the conversation, he was rather surprised to find his friends preparing to butcher an equally eager squadron of heavily armored riflemen. And although he never shied away from a fight, there was a rather black and white difference, albeit in the rare instances of clarity in the goliath’s mind at least, between massacring a monster or bandit, and a lawman who often paid for the former service. 

Besides, Grog was in a rather good mood after enjoying a long draft, and so he unthinkingly thrust a meaty fist outwards in friendly extension to the officer, still hefting in the half-empty tankard.

‘Why don’t we all just have a drink? I’m sure…’

Trying to mimic one of Vex’s infamous winks for good measure, much to the chagrin of the half-elven ranger, and managing to effectively blind himself for the duration of the attempt since it never quite occurred to Grog that a wink was an asymmetric gesture, leading him to produce a greatly exaggerated blink instead of a wink, he never saw the furious officer lean ever so slightly forward, before batting aside the offer with a snarl, and what probably amounted to a curse. Or half a dozen, as he began screaming obscenities at the entirety of their party.

But Vox Machina could not care less for the self-righteous prat, as they eyed the tankard, resting upon one side atop the floor, where the idiot had tossed it from Grog’s grip, in the midst of a guilty puddle of wasted ale.

It was then that they noticed something remarkable: silence. The commander of the enforcers; who until now had effectively refused to shut up, let alone speak at an ordinary volume for acceptable conversation, had fallen silent, as Grog Strongjaw turned from the tragedy to the guilty man, the grief in his expression slowly contorting to everlasting fury, and a murderous glint awoke in his eyes.

One man of the patrol, and then another, took a step back as the goliath rose from his seat to his full, colossal height.

‘I…’ Grog began, barely controlling himself as the muscles in his neck drew tight as a pendulum’s cord, until the veins themselves looked as if they were about to burst from his flesh, ‘would like…’


	4. Hunted

As it turned out, bringing a knife to a gunfight concluded rather splendidly for the seven wanderers. Then again, the proverbial term truly did no justice to the opposition faced by the Advent troopers, particularly since Vox Machina, or rather one Vax’ildan, had brought three such tools of mutilation and bloodshed. Alongside the small addition of a morning star; a musket; a tongue sharp enough to cut iron; a sabertooth; razor broadheads, and of course; one furious, rampaging goliath, the outcome was practically assured the second both sides exploded into action.

Grog had moved first; straight for the neck of the officer that had offended him and his sacred comfort to such a grave degree. Although his size might have indicated otherwise, Grog was already far beyond the slow and lumbering engine of slaughter so many a foe had dismissed him as, and with the furnace of vengeance screaming at his heart, he darted forth like a lightning bolt.

The said officer had yet to even open his mouth to instruct his men; whether to restrain, capture or put down the party remained to be seen, but the order quickly lost all significance when Grog’s fist connected violently with mouth of the red cloaked tyrant; the only truly exposed piece of vulnerable flesh the soldiers’ suits left for desecration.

And with that, as if the goliath had flipped an unseen switch, the rest of Vox Machina reacted as one; finally shedding any hopes for a peaceful resolution, as they charged into the fracturing gunline.

All but Percy, who’s gloved hand had already snapped upright with the same ease one might have averted their gaze to a distant happening of relative import, and leveled it’s deadly gaze upon the closest unobstructed target.

By chance, it was the same warrior Pike and Vax had both marked for death.

Their reaction was hardly one of gratitude, for the brutal sundering of the guardsman’s face upon the spiralling bullet’s impact and journey through tearing sinew and ichor invariably had the unforeseen effect of projecting a rather expansive backwash of the vile liquid; a path that both Vax and Pike stood well in line of.

Thankfully, Vax’s ears, although still set painfully ringing from the nearby ignition of black powder, gave him enough warning to know that at least one man before him would be meeting a grisly end in short order, and he allowed his legs to give way underneath his sprinting form with a final, gentle kick against the ground to send in him to a roll that brought him neatly past the scattered array of soldiers; a pair of daggers already filling his hands. Pike on the other hand, whilst left sorely lacking the same degree of flexibility afforded to her half-elven friend, still had a hardened steel disk affixed to her wrist, and she swung the shield up at the familiar sound, barely in time to provide some protection from the rancid bile; all the while offering her a new opportunity, as she barreled headlong into the flailing man’s leg, sending the crippled trooper off balance, and straight into his compatriot on his flank. 

His friend; or perhaps grudging companion would have been a better term, consider the fashion in which he roughly tossed the dying man aside with the length of his rifle, loudly squawking in that alien tongue as he did so; only managed to attain the briefest moment of respite, before he turned back to the encroaching horde, to suddenly emit a high pitch scream, as the ranger let a small rodent fly from her robes; a scarcely terrifying thought to the masked warrior, until that rodent was quite literally replaced by a bear; materialising barely a foot from his face, and ready to pounce as the confusion of changing forms quickly gave way to feral instinct. 

Quite content to leave Trinket to tear the terrified combatant limb from limb as she waved the Polymorph spell from the forefront of her mind, allowing Vex’s ursine companion to fully revert to his fearsome form, Keyleth’s attention was needed elsewhere, for whilst they had all but annihilated the left flank of the rough firing line formed against them, in piling every one of their number against the three poor souls levied on that side, it had similarly left her and Scanlan to deal with two troopers on their own. And they were fast on the draw, as two barrels lined up on the druid and bard; only awaiting the gentle touch of their master to unleash their unrestrained fury into the savages, and deliver them to death’s embrace.

Of course, Keyleth was not quite ready to have her Aramente; her Odyssey into the great unknown, meet the unfortunate and hideously anti-climatic ending that might have been summarized to ‘gutted by fast moving lead from an unknown world’; a fate that was made all the more probable considering the presence of the bard right beside her. If Scanlan was good at inspiring people, he was equally renown for his inability to compose a meaningful eulogy, what with it typically amounting to an effective summary of all the events the deceased would have most likely prefered to forget, before concluding it with a brief reminder that it all might be reversed with a visit to the high priests, but for the extensive trouble it would only visit upon the living, and that would be that. 

Aside from Pike; who enjoyed a fair deal of respect in the gnome’s eyes, which was far more than any other could expect, particularly since Scanlan had no respect for any other, in his own vision of equality; that rather inglorious conclusion was likely the extent to which any of them could ever hope to be remembered by the bard’s strange lyrics. And most probably, it was the best explanation as to how they were all still alive, for fear that the carefree bard’s inventions would overtake their memories until naught but a corrupted, undeniably hilarious tale remained. Albeit, one any reveler would have enjoyed, save the deceased themselves. 

With a flick of her wrist, Keyleth allowed her mind to reach beyond the physical boundaries of her mortal form, conversing with the air that surrounded her in a single instant, and brought it to bear in the palm of her hand, as a broiling torrent of twisting wind coalesced within her fist, before she let her arm swing about, and released her fragile hold on the furious power of nature.

Having unleashed the spiralling orb of kinetic force a fraction earlier than she was comfortable with, the wall of wind did not quite blow her adversary off his feet, although she was able to manipulate it at the last moment in compensation for it’s weakened power, and pull it into the fray at an angle, as opposed to direct impact, so as the rifle hefted for her eyes was abruptly hammered to the side by the gale winds, battering it away from a lethal outcome.

Straight into his own companion, who yielded little appreciation for a rifle in the gut, even as the shamed knight struggled to disengage his only means of defending himself against the supernatural powers that assailed him and his rapidly diminishing unit.

Then, what could only be described as a second sun tore through the room, as a crackling beam of arcing energy bolted from Scanlan’s hands, striking deep into the heart of the teetering soldier, and momentarily igniting him in a shower of sparks, amid the stream of electricity coursing through his system.

His friend fared little better, for the rifle that adjoined the pair provided an optimal means of conduction, and before long, the two were both grounded upon the floor; one mewling in a mixture of shock and agony as he staggered up onto one leg, trying to limp away, whilst the other lay ominously still in the wake of his ordeal.

The former did not get very far, before his brutally disfigured, and flying, commander, who by now was missing a significant sum of teeth, intact bones, and an entire arm to boot; violently collided with his fleeing from, trapping the squawking figure underneath the dead weight.

Barely a moment passed, and for a deceptively fleeting moment, the doomed man felt the pinning mass of his former Commanding Officer abate, sparking a sick hope at his heart for an escape, as he began to drag himself forward; the door only a marathon of ten feet away.

‘That’s really cute,’ a rumble sounded off somewhere close by, just off of his shoulder, ‘you wanna go?’

The looming shadow should have betrayed the goliath’s presence, but in a delirium of desperation, the brutalised peacekeeper only truly registered his imminent demise when an iron grasp closed about his shoulder, and plucked him off the floor, to bring him face to face with a pair of glimmering eyes that nearly stopped his heart.

Of course, such would have been far, far too easy a fate, and so Grog did not keep him for long; only after assuring him of his immediate intent did he let him go.

Albeit, at a dangerously unhealthy velocity; right at the glass window.

* * *

 

There was a good degree of protest from beyond the shattered mirror-wall, suggesting, to Vax’s mind at least, that Grog’s shrieking human projectile must have found some other mark on the far side of the woefully inadequate window panel, and a small commotion had erupted from the street as onlookers inevitably began to ask questions aloud in regard as to why one of their local enforcers had apparently decided to load himself into a catapult.

But in spite of the abnormal flight, a deceased lawman must have appeared trivial when one spared a glance into the now-destroyed establishment, with four bodies of varying states of completion heaped atop the broken furniture; blood painted across the walls as if it were dispersed from a leafblower; never quite producing a solid coating from where it had been rejected from dying bodies with the aid of fist and blade.

That said, it was undoubtedly the strangest blood the rogue had ever seen, for it was a bright, glistening concoction of yellow fluid, that carried the slightest tinges of a sun-tanned grass’ hue; hardly the same maroon that pulsed in his own veins. And unlike the blood of over a thousand enemies they had slain in their time as Vox Machina, it appeared to be of an entirely liquid composition. Admittedly, a few pieces of rent flesh and chipped armored plate lay scattered about in the mix, making it difficult to pick apart the ichor from the broken vessels, but as he peered closer into the horrific scene, Vax’ildan realised that there was not in fact a single drop that had begun to coagulate amidst the slaughter. True, he admitted to himself, it had not been the largest lapse in time since the bloodshed had concluded and they had begun to take stock of the situation, but even so, Vax had expected at least a portion of the gore to have congealed, in its blind attempts to remain within the bodies that no longer lived, but instead the slaughterhouse remained awash running streams, as the life-fluid continued to run in great rivers along the depressions between the tiles that lined the once immaculate floor. It was almost like water: a thin, pale and weak imitation of a heart’s sustenance.

‘I think we just broke a new record; how long have we been here?’

‘I’d say,’ Vax paused, a frown knotting his brow as he quickly rewound through the hectic evening's events in his mind, trying to gauge the passage of time since they had stepped through Anargyros’’ pathway, ‘I don’t know, an hour tops?’ 

‘And in that time,’ a concerned Percy went on, ‘we’ve...we’ve what? Destroyed a bar, pissed off the locals, and slaughtered the local constabulary to boot.’

‘Right,’ Grog began, a slightly indignant tone already present in his deep voice, ‘for starters, the bar, and that whole thing with the locals is nothing new; not with Scanlan shitting on every bed we find…’

‘It’s a cathartic process!’ The gnome added, in that same injured tone, ‘you should try it sometime; gets all the crap out of your system.’

‘You mean figuratively or literally?’

‘What’s the difference?’ Scanlan’s eyes had all but dilated to the size of dinner plates as Pike joined in the light hearted persecution, ‘It can do a world of wonders.’

‘Right,’ the cleric replied, her head cocked to one side with unmistakable scrutiny etched in her eyes, ‘like that ‘world of wonders’ you left in the temple of Sarenrae?’

‘Admit it,’ her fellow gnome scoffed, ‘it looked pretty good, as far as shits go; had colours and everything.’

‘Yeah,’ Pike conceded with a grim tone, ‘looked is the word. Can’t say the same about when I had to pick it up.’

The strange exchange on the bard’s overactive digestive system might have continued for a good while had another gunshot not punctuated the rapidly deteriorating peace of the evening, followed by a loud curse, and other two such thunderclaps.

Half expecting to find Percy missing half a face after some disastrous mechanical error with the pistol he had yet to holster, the members of Vox Machina were more than surprised when they not only found the pale haired gentleman unmolested by his own weapon, but also six sets of eyes staring back at them from beyond the broken glass, each peering out from behind a dishevel face, and, to the eternal unease of Vox Machina, a gun raised to at least one of their chests.

‘Identify yourself!’ one of them shouted: a haggard, beaten man with a fierce fire alight in his eyes, and a fair number of years hanging on his life, although his voice projected almost none of the confidence one might have associated with such an appearance. Instead, it was almost fearful, as he centered the barrel upon Grog’s hulking figure, but without hefting the said rifle to his own eyes as Percy might have done, instead keeping the weapon at shoulder height, taking only an approximate bead on their compatriot.

Which gave them the impression that the man either had never fired a weapon before, or was far too occupied with keeping them at a distance for fear of the many pointed edges arrayed against him.

It was probably a fair combination of the pair, Vax decided, carefully unclipping his drawn blades to the belt that embraced his waist; there was a tangible unease in the new men that now confronted them, and as Grog went to raise his own axe in response to the standoff, the speaker retaliated with a new explosion of demands, as he stabbed the air with the blunt barrel, brandishing it as if it were a short spear rather than a musket. 

‘Not a step closer!’ He belted, his voice breaking at the final syllable, and it took him a moment to recompose himself, for fear of exposing weakness, giving Vax a final opportunity to raise his hands in the universal sign of a wish to part without having to butcher three more armed fools.

‘Listen, we mean no harm!’ The words must have sounded pathetic, he realised, given the fact he was surrounded by the slaughtered corpses of four local peacekeepers and a small lake of their blood, ‘We...we didn’t start that fight, if that’s what you’re concerned about.’

If it was, their nervous adversary gave little indication that such was the case, as he allowed himself the luxury of taking an eye off the strangely dressed figure before him with a pair of pointed ears, to take in the rest of the scene.

Needless to say, it did little to put him at ease.

‘Does it matter? What the hell are you thinking throwing ADVENT out windows? Ideentify yourself,’ he barked again, this time taking aim at the rouge, as a tinge of steel began to creep into his tone, now apparently at ease that they were not about to simply charge his pitiful compatriots, ‘which cell are you? Praetorian? Roamer?’

‘What?’

‘You’re with the resistance, aren’t you? Why the hell else would you lot be killing ADVENT?’

Vax was fairly certain that the utmost confusion twisting about his gut like a knife would have made it onto his face by now; as it had with every other member of their weary band, but even as the words left the rugged man’s mouth, another silhouette appeared in the streetlight, mumbling something at a softened volume that was likely intended to never reach their ears. 

Thankfully though, both of the gunmen did not appear to have had any experience with elves in their past, lest they have taken the precaution of putting the twins in a shallow grave before exchanging sensitive details. Not that their brief conversation unveiled anything damning revelation to Vax or Vex, since it practically amounted to the fact it was ‘time to go’, but it’s effect was nearly instantaneous.

‘Shit,’ the group’s spokesman murmured, twisting his head back and forth from the messenger to Vox Machina, and back, ‘we still got time, Cullings.’

‘Forget it, man; what about us? The element of surprise is gone. Best we can do now is fucking bail.’

‘What about them?’ The first man shot back, his voice rising to a frustrated demand, as his concern for secrecy was apparently usurped by urgency, ‘we should…’

He did not continue, as a new sound flittered on the wind; something that sounded vaguely familiar to the rapid updraft of air produced by an air elemental, or a bird’s song if one had somehow managed to pause it’s performance only a moment after it had begun, then permitted it to continue before changing one’s mind yet again; hundreds of times all in the shortest span of time until the low whirl sounded more like a chitter of machinery than a song. But whatever it was, it’s effect was instantaneous, as Vax watched the unmistakable blade of fear sink back into the older man’s heart.

From the manner in which half of the company simply stood rooted to the spot, and the grime that encrusted each of their clothes unlike the clean pressed uniforms of the men Vox Machina had recently fallen out with, it did not take much to summarize that they were no disciplined military outfit. One of the armed observers; the one that had crouched to the right of his panicking commander, simply gaped in disbelief as his friends scattered to the winds, leaving him alone to face seven heavily armed and blooded individuals, alongside the small matter of an armored bear. Another, in his haste to put as much distance between himself and the source of that low droning wail on the night’s horizon, crashed into either the curb of the street, or the corpse of the man Grog had hurled from the drinking hole in a particularly vengeful rage, and promptly fell into a tangled heap of limbs, scrambling with maddened desperation in his efforts to flee.

Which proved to be the final straw for the trailing gunman, as he switched his gaze to meet Vax’s one last time; giving a brief apologetic wave, as he did so, before speeding off in pursuit of his rapidly diminishing companions, leaving the half-elves, gnomes, goliath and human all quite confused beyond comprehension.

‘Anyone care to explain what on earth just happened?’

‘Just a bunch of nosies poking their noggins in places they shouldn’t,’ Grog summarized with a content grunt, swinging the axe up onto his shoulder before he plucked the toppled tankard from the ground, and gave a little exclamation of utmost joy at the sight that greeted him; for a precious few residual dregs of ale remained nestled at the lower rim of the, and he quickly occupied himself with downing the aforementioned contents; slouched over a stool that looked as if it were about to buckle and give way at any moment. 

‘No offense Grog,’ Vex began, casting a worried glance out the shattered window, ‘but maybe we could drink later? After we put some distance from the five or so corpses at our feet?’

‘You lot worry far, far too much!’

‘Look,’ the ranger retaliated, spreading her palms out in a universal symbol of desperate reasoning, ‘even Scanlan isn’t drinking right now, alright? That is how deep we are in the…’

She stopped when she realised said the gnome, that was currently standing in the open doorway, was not in fact looking in the same direction as Keyleth, who was in the process of attempting to call back the strange, if coherent gunmen, for a friendly chat, to no discernable degree of success. Rather, Scanlan was in the midst of what appeared to be a rather suggestive mime aimed at a particularly buxom figure on the opposite side of the street, who was not returning any eyes, seemingly fixated with the corpse in the street as opposed to the overly active gnome. 

At least this one didn’t have a beard, Vex thought grimly, turning back to Grog, who by now had all but tuned out to their current predicament as he emptied another flask into his hand. 

‘Alright,’ she mused to herself, trying to suppress the anxiety growing in her gut, ‘alright; we’ve still got time. We’ve still got time; we’re gonna make it out of this…somehow.’

‘Guys?’ Percy’s voice came at a rather alarmed volume, ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but it looks like we might have company coming our way.’

‘That’s not a company,’ added Keyleth, her eyes bulging at some sight down the street, ‘that’s...that’s a problem.’

‘I think problem might be an understatement.’

‘A big...problem?’ She amended, as her knuckles whitened about the hardwood staff she still hefted aloft, ‘A big, big problem?’

‘Maybe just plain bad,’ Pike offered, rounding the corner to take stock of the situation, for her height prevented her from fully assessing the threat from the confines of the store, and behind the relative safety of a windowsill, ‘I really think we should get going.’

Vex was admittedly on the verge of asking, how terrible ‘bad’ constituted to, but she managed to clamp her mouth shut before she could tempt fate any further.

Not that it was giving any heed to her, since it had apparently decided ‘death’ was the only matter on their agenda today, as what appeared to be a miniature skyship lowered itself into the street, perhaps only fifty meters away. Jet black, and with four red, pulsing shards of energy providing the means of elevation from the ground, it was still far too large to in fact touchdown, and for a moment, Vex breathed a sigh of relief.

A sigh of relief that lasted maybe half a second, before not one, but five heavily armored soldiers simply stepped off the side, and dropped hard into the ground atop their feet; their hardened exoskeletons apparently cushioning the hard impact, as one man; another red skinned warrior adorned by cape and steel crown, waved them forward, toward the tattered remains of the bar.

Immediately, the squadron broke into a light jog, hefting their weapons to bear as they marched; two men sweeping far ahead of their commander, who fell in line with a third, whilst the last shouted some other intangible remark skyward, presumably instructing the crew to get clear of an impending slaughter.

Or, Vex corrected herself, it could have been to simply tell inform the hovering transport that they were no longer in danger of getting crushed by additional cargo, as something else stepped into the door.

A white, hulking, yet skeletal figure welded atop two legs that proceeded to mimic their motion in short order, stepping clear of the edge, before dropping into the street, sundering the earth with it’s heavy fall, even as it whirled to life. And like some dwarven construct of war, save for a far greater attention paid to detail and elegance, it hefted itself aloft, unslung it’s select weapon of destruction, which appeared to simply constitute an over-sized variant of the rifles carried by its smaller allies, and marched to war.

‘Well,’ said Vex to no one in particular, ‘I stand corrected. We’re definitely gonna die.’

* * *

 

‘Wait up! We just want to talk…’

‘Sod off! You dug your fucking grave, so don’t drag us after you!’

Something was hurled in his direction to punctuate that wish, but Vax was not easily dissuaded, as he continued to give chase after the fleeing gunmen, all the while feeding directions to the rest of the company as they struggled to keep up. At least, it was a fair guess, given the fact he could neither see them, and was under threat of losing his hearing from the multitude of gunfire that was echoing off the streets behind him.  

‘Look,’ he shouted, raising an open hand in reconciliation, ‘we obviously got off on the wrong foot. We’re new in town, and we’d just like some simple answers!’

‘New in town,’ the eldest man murmured beneath his breath, though it still carried clearly across the chilly air for it is difficult to keep a whisper at a whisper’s volume when pelting for one’s life. ‘You want some bloody advice then? Stop fucking following us!’

He was in the process of drawing breath for another expletive when his legs suddenly kicked up from underneath him, trailing far behind his belting form until he raised himself to the point at which one might have presumed him to be asleep, albeit face-down, and in mid-air. That was before gravity finally reasserted its dominance over momentum, and the bellowing figure dropped into the sidewalk, ominously silent.

‘ADVENT!’ One of the figures screamed, instinctively ducking to the earth as another bolt of light sailed through the space his companion had previously occupied, before a final projectile drove into the dead man’s chest even as he lay crumpled across the ground, ‘scatter!’

Immediately, the alleyway lit up with a nearly dizzying flicker of strobing lights, darting between, and sometimes straight through the ill lit figures the half-elf had taken to pursue, as three heavily armored men; practically identical in appearance to those they had so recently encountered at the bar, stepped out into the open, blazing a trail of fire from the pipes slung between their arms.

For a moment, Vax was tempted to simply remain in the shadows, for none of the enforcers had identified him amidst the shadows of what could only be described as an steel banded container for waste disposal, judging from the smell at least, and despite having already killed a couple of guards, he had sincerely doubted that their situation could be improved by massacring another band.  

As for those he had pursued in the hope of answers, he still had no idea who they were; why they were being hunted with dogged determination from the authorities, and more importantly, whether they could be trusted, as they fired back, dropping one soldier where he stood.

But the Rouge’s time for thought was ended far sooner than he would have hoped, as the distinctive patter of feet drew ever nearer in his ears, and one trooper abruptly turned in his direction, before screaming an instruction to his last standing subordinate.

‘Korsh’ta!’ 

Their rifles snapped to bear, just as Vex and Grog rounded the corner, pelting right into the line of fire.

Before one abruptly pulled back, its head held high aloft until it was tilted all the way back amid a soundless scream, clutching a long tear in it’s throat.

His companion, understandably occupied with registering the fact he now stood alone in the face of a rapidly growing hostile force, as the rest of Vox Machina piled into the narrowly cut street, was still trying to pull his eyes from his dying friend when a second dagger appeared in his shoulder. 

He dropped to a knee, struggling to pull it’s torturous hold from his form, when it vanished into a cloud of mist, leaving him horribly confused, with so many a question, until Vex’s arrow ended it all, toppling him backward into the gravel.

It took the remaining fighters a moment to register what had in fact transpired, for as Vax’s daggers blinked back to his waist, little evidence of his work, and more than a few were inclined to believe a lucky burst from one of their own had felled the pair; one or two did not even witness their unlikely allies trampling down the street, until they saw the feathered arrow shaft protruding cleanly from the second man’s armored skull.

‘Mind talking now?’ Vex called, another arrow already drawn into groove of her bowstring, although it was currently held pointed towards the ground; providing no direct threat to those she addressed, without completely removing the possibility from their minds.

That is, if any of them would have summoned the courage to represent themselves, since her words only seemed to prompt them to attempt to rouse one of the still bodies to life once more; the one Vax recognised as the first to fall, and the group’s apparent spokesman and leader.

‘Just give me a moment,’ Pike murmured, pushing past her friends before she pelted across the intervening space, before any of them could stop her. One of the men; a wild-eyed man who did not look to have shaved for the better part of a month, or year, turned from his commander to face her, his hand moving instinctively for what she could only assume to be a sharpened implement of war, but as soon as her gaze met his eyes, she was surprised to see the paranoia soften to unease; as quickly as it had emerged.

‘What’re you doing?’ He tried to make it sound like a threat, though in all actuality, it sounded more like a confused child tugging at an absent mother’s hand, leaving the Pike quite dumbstruck to say the least; at least for a moment until she recalled the question she’d been asked.

‘Helping him,’ she said in an assuring tone, ‘or at least I can try.’

Wordless, he raised a hand, gesturing for her to head past the small clustering of figures as they milled about in confusion. 

Still trying to ascertain just as to how long the poor soul been living under the looming threat of death to cow him so, it tore at Pike’s heart in the realisation she would have to disappoint him, for the body she was admitted to was quite dead on her arrival. With his clothes awash with a natural scarlet, and a pair of fist-sized holes torn through his tattered form; one scored deep in his hip, whilst the other had formed a sick, miniature tunnel through his chest cavity, the real question would probably amounted to how on earth any man could have mistaken him to still breath after his ordeal.

‘He’s gone,’ she said simply, shaking her head as she tugged her hand from the corpse’s neck, for although obvious, there was still some grave injustice in refusing to at least offer a token attempt to check for the impossible, most particularly so with the question amounting to someone’s life, ‘he’s gone. What about your other man?’

‘Yaw’s gone too,’ a voice shuddered from the other body’s direction, ‘dammit, we can’t stay out here; we’ll be dead within the hour at best.’

‘You guys wouldn’t happen to know...I don’t know, a friendlier place?’ asked Keyleth, as the rest of Vox Machina moved to their cleric’s side, ‘somewhere we might not get shot on such a frequent basis?’

‘There’s the safehouse,’ one of them offered; the youth Vax had previously observed from the window, even as he continued to clutch a rifle that was designed for far larger hands than his own, struggling to find a proper grasp to keep the instrument steady, let alone ready to fire, even as he looked to another for some form of confirmation; a plead in his eyes, though if it were addressed to the man in question, or the master of fate himself, no one could tell. ‘you think we could even make it back there?’

‘Simms,’ his new apparent superior warned dangerously, his own hand dropping out of sight to what the more underhand of Vox Machina’s number would have easily recognised to be some concealed weapon, and not a cleverly designed one at that, for the motion to retrieve it only drew all the more attention than he might have aquired by simply slinging it across his back in the first place.

‘I don’t want to be blunt,’ Vax interjected, once again placing a pair of open hands against an imaginary wall that separated the two parties in a gesture of peace, ‘but we just saved you lot from these goons, and we honestly have no idea where the hell we are. So perhaps you could, return the favor? We’ll be square if you can just get us some place safe where we can at least get an explanation.’

He could see that this one; a rather grizzled individual with what appeared to be a strange, beige gambeson with at least six rectangular and bulging pockets sewn across its forefront drawn over his chest, was on the verge of caving in. His eyes flickered everywhere but in the direction of any of their gazes, searching desperately for a way out. Then his eyes locked on the road ahead, a shrug on his shoulder.

'Find your own way,' he whispered hoarsely.

He got two paces before the strange affliction that dropped his two fallen companions struck again, leaving a straggler of their number with a visible cavity in the shoulder.

* * *

 

‘We’re dead,’ he was muttering, oblivious to the cleric’s hand as she pressed it against his forehead, trying desperately to soothe a broken mind.

‘Morris!’ his commander was screaming, as he hugged a wall for his life, ‘get it together! We gotta go, right fucking now!’

‘What exactly is that?’

‘What, you’ve never seen an ADVENT dropship? That thing is fucking death on wings; I…’

Another bolt; another man in the dirt; this time, leaving him hardly silent as he clutched the rent mess of sinew that once encompassed his left cheek, and ear.

‘How do we kill it?’ Percy shouted over the din of fire, even as he slid out from the relative safety of a concrete bulwark and let a bullet fly, to watch it strike off ineffectual against the armored plate, before one of the three troopers seated within the open side of the ship diverted his gaze to the gunslinger, and let of a retaliatory burst, forcing him back into shadow.

‘Are you crazy? All we can do is bloody run! Simms, grab Bron and let’s go! Morris; snap out of it!’

Pike could only assume Morris was the man she was tending to, considering the one who had apparently taken charge of the rapidly dwindling party; the one she recalled to have answered to the name of ‘Cullings’ back at the broken bar, had been reduced to a spitting wreck as he gesticulated wildly in her direction, as if infuriated at her attempts to ease the pounding mind in her hands, preferring haste to preservation.

Needless to say, Pike was hardly about to indulge in such, as she finished whispering a prayer, and felt an unnatural warmth course through her palms; a rather counter-intuitive sensation considering the boiling temperature of the poor man’s forehead, but as she let her will pour through, the unholy heat of his sweltering form seemed to abate like an ocean tide; rising once again in staggered intervals as wild panic fought back against her administrations, but in ever weakening strength as calm took ahold.

‘Listen to me,’ the gnome whispered, gently yet with unquestioning force, ‘calm yourself. Calm; you understand?’

He let loose a frenzied series of nods in affirmation; his eyes still swollen with terror, but now possessing a hint of reason that had all but disappeared, only to be replaced by confusion as he realised his savior was standing at her full height to touch his scalp, despite being propped up at the waist by the support of a convenient wall. Probably his first time seeing a gnome as well, Pike thought to herself in passing, a slight frown flashing across her eyes.  _ Had no one ever seen anything other than humanity around here? _ She asked herself, before another burst of fire snapped her gaze to the ongoing firefight. 

The corpses of, Yaw and the two men she would never know the name of still decorated the street where they had fallen, even as further lances of crimson light tore apart their still forms. As for the living, they were scattered to the four winds; Percy, Vex and a shadow that probably betrayed Trinket at a corner only five meters away, across the narrow alley; Grog and Scanlan were crouched in the shade of the heavy garbage tip; Vax was bordering on the suicidal as he struggled to drag the screaming half-faced Bron behind some measure of security alongside one of the battered humans, and Keyleth was no where to be seen. Meanwhile, the steel bastion continued to loom high above, providing a fine perch for it’s three vissible occupants to continue to rain fire onto their number, as they stood shoulder to shoulder upon it’s open mid-section; rifles glowing hot as they shrieked their disapproval for the half-elf’s attempts.

Three more rounds tore apart the road, and one passed through Vax’s cloak, leaving a sizable rent in the fabric, but it’s flowing structure continued to serve it’s purpose, misconstruing his shape to unfriendly eyes amid the dark, before he finally heaved a sigh of relief, as he dragged himself about the corner with a bloody, screaming body in his hands.

‘Any ideas?’ He shouted, barely making himself heard over the screech of rifles discharging their deadly cartridges.

‘If it’s anything like Emon’s skyships,’ Pike responded, shielding her eyes as a round passed dangerously close to her head, striking the corner of the wall she had entrusted with her life, in a shower of dust and chipped stone, ‘those extensions on the sides of the ship should be keeping it in the sky; we knock those out, gravity should take hold again.’

‘Those units are still heavily armored,’ Percy roared, ‘I’ll give Bad News a try, but I can’t make any promises.’

‘If we can’t knock out the ship, why not just take out the crew?’

It was more of a statement than a legitimate question on Vex’s lips, as she slid out into the deadly lane; exposing herself to the strobing flashes of death for the briefest of moments, and let an arrow fly. 

The situation on the skyship’s deck quickly transformed into one of chaos as the figure at the center of the trio suddenly jerked back with an arrow having torn cleanly through his cheek, leaving him a squirming mess as his two compatriots looked on in horror; the feeling of unassailable security in the sky having vanished in one instant. They were accustomed to dealing death from the sky, and while ground fire was hardly an unheard of experience, it was certainly rare that they saw the projectile. For some reason, a man suddenly crumpling to the ground, seemingly untouched save a touch of reddened paint, imposes a far lesser burden on the mind, as opposed to a sharpened stake visibly appearing in the face of another; it’s serrated broadhead clear of all to see, and the exposed length of the shaft immediately denoting the depth of the grievous injury.

A second later, and any confidence the pair might have retained vanished when a loud ‘thunk’ resonated throughout the evening air, revealing a tremendous heavy war axe embedded into the side of the aircraft.

Then, the floor lurched out from underneath them.

Grog was still struggling to tear the airship from the sky as he tore at the chain that connected to the embedded battleaxe he’d sent skyward when the enchanted link slackened in his hands. At first, he feared the worst, thinking that, in a combination of furious adrenaline and mechanical protest on the part of his foe that the pressure had placed too much on the steel bound line and simply snapped the instrument, but on realising it was still very much attached to the gunship, for he could still feel every groan and protest reverberate through the palm of his hand, he turned his eyes upward, in time to watch the once elegant vessel transform into a brick.

Or perhaps a poorly constructed replica of a bird’s frame, put together with uncaring hands, might have better emulated the sight, since the dropship certainly did not plummet straight into the earth, but rather entered a deadly spiral of a descent, like a bird of prey hunting a lesser specimen of it’s kind in a ruthless dance, coming ever closer to the earth with each rotation.

The men aboard it were, for the most part, simply thrown clear, screaming indistinguishable obscenities to the void as they watched the ground rush to the embrace them like long-lost lovers, before the said lover unveiled a blade in answer to the affair that had begun the separation in the first place, and slew them on the spot. 

It was then that they realised the wind had picked up, as the howling vortex slammed back into the floundering airship.

Already off balance and struggling to stay airborne, the heavy vessel threatened to keel over completely as what could only be described as a frenzied rotating wall of air blasted through it’s open belly, uprooting steel beams and bars that once allowed passengers some purchase in retaining a precarious hold on a shifting platform, and practically destroying the fragile balance the teetering ship depended on to defy the tug of gravity. 

The results were instantaneous, as the ship lost all control, pitched over, and rammed headfirst into a nearby structure, erupting in a column of dust and flame, sending a half dozen denizens scrambling out of the afflicted building as it did so, although intriguingly, those who would have watched the steel bird’s death carefully would have noticed that in it’s final death throes, the pile of metal did in fact cease it’s downward spiral into the populated building, and even drag itself back in a barely controlled fashion, plummeting clumsily into it’s side in the final moments of a shallow turn, sparing the three storey structure and its inhabitants from the fireball that engulfed it a moment later, as the fuel reserves finally ruptured.

‘Holy shit,’ Cullings mouthed, eyes wide at the scene before him, as the two mismatched parties emerged from hiding, ‘How’d you do that?’

‘Not us,’ Vex noted, taking a cautious eye to the rifle still in Cullings’ hands, for in his confusion, he still gripped it with a vice-like hold, somewhat undecided on whether to lower it, and fully embrace his apparent allies, or raise it once more in a desperate effort to ward off the strangers, ‘her.’

It did not take the most observant watcher to tell that it the result of simple shock, rather than admiration, that Cullings allowed the rifle to drop earthwards, as the turbulent spirals of air departed the ravenged corpse of the transport, only to rapidly coalesced into one howling vortex barely meters away for the briefest of moments, threatening to blast back the spellbound fighter.

Then, like an uncountable number of streams all funneling into a single, unseen jar, the air poured downward, moulding together to produce a mottled, leather boot. Then it’s twin appeared at it’s side, tapping ever so softly against the graveled ground; apparently slipped upon the feet of a poltergeist, as it progressed towards them. Then a darkened robe, bound by leaves of strangely even and regular size; until the whirlwind had vanished altogether, leaving a comparatively unassuming Keyleth in it’s place; a somewhat less threatening image for the those of short memory.

Unfortunately, Cullings was not privy to such a condition, and he spun back around, suspicion immediately alight once more.

‘What...’ He half-spat, half-trembled, in a futile effort to remain unmoved by the abnormal circumstances. ‘What the hell was that?’

“That’ would be Keyleth,’ Vax offered, ‘and she might be the only thing standing between you and those fellas coming around the corner.’

‘Hello!’ the druid offered, with a friendly wave, snapping Cullings’ gaze back over his shoulder. It practically destroyed any fear the man might have held for the strangely dressed half-elf standing before him, much to Vax’s dismay, but so too did it disarm him entirely. The last he’d anticipated of a woman capable of tearing down an aircraft was a carefree, if nearly oblivious demeanor to the fact they were all about to die, as the trample of boots drew ever closer.

‘What are you people?’

‘Get us someplace safe,’ Vax prodded, flicking a glance back down the ways they had come, all too aware of the common issue they all faced, ‘and we’ll tell you all about it. Unless you’d prefer to just lay down and die here.’

As the angered shouts of the armored cohorts in their wake drew closer, and louder, they could plainly see the desperation in Cullings’ eyes, as he swung too and fro; the fear of his foe he knew ripe in the gut; the uncertainty of the strange beings before him shackling his feet. A choice of certain death, and almost definite betrayal and death dangled before him; the sandglass of his life slowly trickling away with every second he paused.

With a desperate cry, as if someone had rammed and twisted a blade through his side, he surrendered to betrayal.

‘Sod it,’ he spat, turning down the alley, ‘follow me.’


	5. Anarchists

It was by no means the very first time Vox Machina had earned the ire of an entire city; not long ago had they escaped the predatory instincts of the enslaved Illithid of Yug’Voril, among other havocs, but that did not translate the experience to one that they thoroughly enjoyed, as they followed Cullings through the darkened streets, where grime and puddles of an ill-colour had collected undisturbed in great quantities. Evidently, they were not pathways anyone willingly seized; the type where those in the employ of the city would not dare to tread, unless they were wearing heavy plate and carrying enough ammunition to flatten a horde of cutthroats, as was the case of their pursuers.

For fit as they were, Vox Machina were still composed of a vast range of creatures from countless walks of life, and some were not quite as suited to running as the others under their banner, namely the two gnomes Pike and Scanlan, whose rather diminutive statures, and legs, were proving a hindrance at best, with them continuously exchanging places atop Grog’s back before setting off at a sprint to keep up with the ruthless jog of the combined until. And then there was the injured man of Culling’s company, who was being dragged like a sack behind Vax and the man who responded to the name of ‘Simms’, leaving a rather prodigious trail of red stained into the street, leaving a clear path for their pursuers to follow.

Twice had they already caught up, and twice had Vex emptied a pair of arrows into the first man to round the corner, televising the sheer stupidity of giving chase while the Ranger stood guard, buying them a few more seconds. But the armored, chittering troopers seemed to possess a short memory, and Vex could stay behind only so long before having to return to the fleeing company, for fear of another brigade cutting them off, and leaving her stranded in an unfamiliar, and ever increasingly hostile environment, allowing their pursuers to gain ground once again, before the process repeated itself again. At least, Vex thought to herself grimly, it would until her rapidly diminishing stock of arrows was exhausted. She still had two more of the deadly darts clutched in the same hand that hefted the elegant, wooden arch, in addition to the other three in her quiver, alongside the small measure of not one but three other quivers on her person; one rested against either hip, ready to disgorge a feathered bolt at a moment’s notice, and a final, emergency reserve that lay perhaps awkwardly atop the small of her back. Unlike the others, the latter hung completely horizontally, with a small leather tarpaulin tethered atop it’s narrow opening to keep it’s contents from plunging to the ground with a violent motion; presenting a challenge, if not making it downright impossible, to draw an arrow from its embrace, in it’s current position. Coupled with the fact it was still concealed beneath her cloak, the container was more of a means to resupply after an engagement, when one had time to replace it with the one adhered along her spine, and most certainly not when there was an enemy capable of firing back.

With luck, she prayed, it would not come to that.

Then again, she recalled, as she released another bolt downrange, fate was a cruel, sadistic pile of savagery. 

Meanwhile in the sky above, a familiar eagle swept overhead, it’s eyes pinned upon the road ahead, keeping watch for any threats that might have tried to take the company unawares by heading them off. Unfortunately, that process was complicated a marginal degree by the fact that Keyleth, with a bird’s vocal cords, was incapable of making any sense to a human’s ears. 

Not that it stopped her of course; she simply dive-bombed any such party, ramming the hooked beak through a trooper’s exposed cheek, before disappearing to the night, leaving the search party to scatter, blast at the world’s ceiling, and toss their objective to the winds of history. All the while, Percy kept a watch on that flittering shape, noting each time it took a turn groundworks, and relaying the message up to Cullings, who respectively altered his course to avoid the approximate region of pursuit.

But with patrols intended to intercept the team all too preoccupied with a terror from the sky, it did not take long for Cullings to guide them to the relative safety of a heavy set iron door, plastered into the base of a heavily run down building that certainly failed to meet the standards of it’s brothers. 

‘Fox, eight-seven-two,’ he panted, beating against the unyielding frame, ‘friendly casualties; Geron, open up!’

There was a mumbled voice that answered through the plate, but, scattered as they were in both their attempts to recover from the breakneck run, as well as to scan their surroundings to ensure they were truly alone, none of them could pick out the details of the reply. Although, judging from the way in which Cullings’ face split into a scowl, it must have been one that did not bode well for anyone outside the bulwark.

‘Dammit, Geron, we’re sitting ducks out here! Bron’s going to bleed out if we wait any longer…’

He was cut off by the scrap of metal, as a small port in the doorway opened, at eye level, to admit a pair of deep blue eyes, that blazed with a fury matched only by the fires of Hell itself.

‘And he’s bleeding right on my fucking doorstep, he paints a lovely fucking image for ADVENT to come by, so get!’

‘Geron…’

‘You know the protocol; lose them and circle back in a week. If you’re going to die, die where you aren’t going to get everyone else killed.’

The slit slammed shut, leaving Cullings to throw himself at the passageway, pounding ineffectual against the obstruction, only to be rewarded with a dull pain in his hands for all his efforts.

‘Geron!’ The soldier screamed, though at the volume of a whisper to avoid waking the dead, and living that sorely wished for their demise, ‘Geron, open the damn door!’

‘Here,’ rumbled a familiar voice, ‘let me try.’

* * *

 

‘Alright, get in, you miserable lot. Now you give a good fucking explanation; what in the blazes do you think you’re doing?’

For a man in his late forties, at least by Pike’s best estimate, the voice from beyond the door certainly belonged to a rather spry character, as they were roughly shoved into the artificial light  by a multitude of gloved hands, to face the fuming gentleman. 

Once the stream of livid insults had abated in the wake of Grog’s rather violent entry past a steel bolted doorway, they had been admitted, or perhaps ordered at gunpoint, into a makeshift hospital below ground level, where a man and woman; both human for that matter, had taken the bleeding Bron off of Vax’s hands, mumbling their thanks as they had done so. 

It was hardly a sterile environment, for the damp cling of moisture hung upon every intake of breath, and from the few patches of wall she could make out amidst the dark, Pike could only assume that it was not the paintjob of some blind artist that had produced the mottled patterns across the wall that looked suspiciously like a rather severe case of mould. 

Most probably because it most definitely was mould.

But the fungal infestation was only sufficient to catch her eye for a fleeting moment, as the newest tirade of bile began to spill from their unwilling host’s mouth. Although, thankfully, the vast bulk of the venom was directed in Cullings’ direction, and though they were certainly ‘the subject’ of the abuse, it was never quite tossed in their direction. As if the unfortunate man had stumbled back into his house with a rabid and mangy dog in his wake, to face the vengeful mother who would have nothing to do with the said dog, but had enough sense to realise words would be wasted on the canine’s ears. So instead, the sights were trained on the guilty child, giving Pike the opportunity to better assess the apparent commander of the military unit they seemed to have fallen in with, before he could realise they were in fact intelligent enough to discern his every word.

Unlike the men of Cullings’ unit, there was an air of order to Geron’s attire; a long sleeved shirt of woven fabric adorned by interlaid trenches of earth, each of a different earthen hue, concealed his stout form. Upon his chest lay a similar pocketed vest to Cullings’ own wargear, although unlike his subordinate, Geron had apparently seen fit to make a number of modifications to the instrument, and a vast array of strange equipment; from pieces of tattered parchment alongside a compass, to a pair of steel brooches pinned neatly through the shoulder straps; all hung from various segments of the battered shell. As for the sheathed blade he had tethered, with nothing more than some form of adhesive tape, to the front of his chest piece, it seemed to give the impression he still was not quite as experienced in warfare as opposed to the elite militaries of Tal’dorei, until she spotted the second sheath in the dark gloom of his back. It’s hilt was barely visible, and dulled until the light refused to reflect off its surface, yet it hung at an angle, facing downwards as if it might suddenly drop out of its holding if not for the metallic button that held a retaining leather strip across the opening. Whatsmore, for such a short instrument, it was not planted directly at the center of the man’s back. Rather, it lay nearly a quarter of the way over onto the right hand side of his body, until the tip of the hilt nearly dangled over the region she presumed his rump occupied. It’s placement was bizarre, to say the least, until she spotted his dominant hand fumble with his rear pocket; a mere inch away from blade’s grasp, and she quickly revised her assessment. While he certainly lacked some of the finess a Carver or Scale Bearer might have exuded, he seemed to be no stranger to gutter fighting, where a concealed weapon in easy reach could finish a battle long before an opponent had time to draw breath for aid, let alone draw his sword.

If one also accounted for the pistol he was currently brandishing with the apparent intent to resculpture Cullings’ face in the immediate future, Pike had little doubt he was one person they would do well to avoid troubling.

Which, unfortunately, was a grim little gem foresight had refused to divulge until Grog had broken down his door. 

It was then that she realised, somewhat belatedly, that the viscous flow of words had stopped, and those blue eyes were narrowed on her own form.

‘See something you like?’ He snarled.

Perhaps, Pike contemplated, as she nervously swallowed an empty throat, it might have been the wiser course of action to avert her gaze from the blade after realising it’s proximity to the killer’s behind. For a moment, she wondered if he was about to simply pull the trigger that still rested in his hand, as he scrutinized her from head to toe, which was not saying much, considering her rather underwhelming height. But if he was thoroughly annoyed by the misconceived stare, he appeared to be too occupied with murdering Cullings to show any real interest in mutilating the Cleric. For now at least, as he turned back to his subordinate, who had nearly shrivelled into a ball by the time the hostile gaze returned.

‘How bloody old are they? You know what? I don’t want to know. What I do know..’ He spat, gesticulating wildly in about every direction; the pistol still clasped in his hand, ‘is that everything you see here? Poof! Gone! Dumped off in the cesspit of history, or whatever the fucking term was, thanks to you and your stupid ass, Cullings, you get that? Or does it just not register in that empty skull?’

‘Sir,’ the younger man breathed, not trusting himself beyond a single syllable, ‘Bron would have...’

‘Yes, he’d be smelling roses right now if you lot had just done your job, but evidently that’s not the case; instead, half your team’s gone, and ADVENT’s probably on route to tear us a new one, so I’ll ask you one more time; what fucking happened?’

Cullings made a futile gesture in their direction, as if he somehow expected one of their number to take up the mantle of bearing the assault. 

Needless to say, he found them wanting.

‘What?’ Geron sneered, following the desperate glance to the side, ‘you don’t think I know you picked up some strays? What happened, man? And shut up over there; when I’m done with incompetent here, you’re next.’

His eyes did not follow the statement as they bore deep into Cullings’ soul, but the vehemence behind the threat was enough to stifle Scanlan’s suppressed amusement at the whole catastrophe.

‘I don’t know,’ came the splutter of a reply, ‘we found them killing the Overseer.’

‘This lot?’ Like a switch had been thrown, the frustration was replaced by a tide of curiosity, and a whiff of suspicion, but it was quick to fade, as Geron finally took a moment to properly assess his unwanted ‘guests’.

Of course, the members of Vox Machina were quick to respond in their own methods, in answer to a man who appeared to express an interest in their proficiency to take life. In short, the type of man they dealt with on a nearly everyday basis, when they were not actually fulfilling one of those requests to go on a sanctioned massacre. Vax seemed to melt into the darkness of his hood; a rather stark contrast to the druid at his side, who seemed to beam with light, or life anew; one could never quite tell between the two when it came to Keyleth. Meanwhile, Grog lifted his heavy axe high atop his shoulder, all too eager to present a paragon of mayhem and destruction, even as Scanlan flittered to his side, a suave grin bound to his face, much to Geron’s apparent discomfort. Elsewhere, Pike and Percy stood in a neither threatening nor overly forward manner; their hands resting near, but not quite upon their chosen weapons, as they remained unmoving under the scrutiny that passed over them in a heartbeat. Trinket, on the other hand, simply looked hungry. And of course, at the end of the line, their raven haired archer could not resist the urge to slip a deviant wink, that had the only noticeable impact of whipping Geron’s gaze away, back to Cullings, ending his apparent inspection.

‘This lot?’ He asked again, disbelief evident in his words alone.

‘I know, they don’t look it,’ Cullings went on, emboldened in part with his commander’s uncertainty, ‘but I saw them throw ADVENT trooper right out a window, right into me, I might add. And I’m not quite sure how they did it, but that one tore a dropship out of the sky itself.’

They could tell it was not his intent, but the old man’s eyes could not help themselves but widen as they followed the outstretched hand to the unassuming, and far too friendly half elf in their midst.

For a good moment, no one was quite able to find the words to ease the armed man’s doubts, which was probably why the very next thing any of them registered was the scrape of steel at their backs, admitting the whiff of a conversation from beyond the door, before it was belatedly cut off, as eyes turned to the apparent stand-off in the facility’s medical ward.

‘S...Sir,’ a voice finally piped up, ‘message from Rawlings. We’ve…’

‘...got a lot of company headed in our direction,’ Geron finished for him, suddenly appearing empty as the realisation hit him. As if the fluctuating spiral of emotions, from desperation, to fury, to confusion, intrigue and hope had left him spent.

‘How ready are we to jump ship?’

‘We’re still transferring the data files,’ the newcomer muttered, careful of his words in front of their guests, ‘give or take five minutes. But the papers; shredders can’t handle that volume…’

‘Then start a bonfire; what do you want me to say? ADVENT gets their hands on that shit, we might as well save them the trouble and slit our throats. You lot,’ Geron snapped, finally finding his voice to communicate with the company directly, ‘time’s not a commodity I got a lot of, so I’ll be blunt. You good at killing?’

‘He asks if we’re good at killing,’ Grog chuckled, rather oblivious to the fact Geron was no mood for jokes, ‘it’s my middle name.’

‘You don’t even have a middle name,’ Scanlan reminded him.

‘Of course I have a middle name,’ the Goliath snapped back, swinging about, careful to enunciate every word as he repeated his identity. ‘Grog, Strong, Jaw. See? Middle? Grog...Strong... wait.’

‘Yes!’ Vax finally burst out, shuffling forward until he had somewhat placed himself between their volatile host and the confused goliath, as if the replacement of the sight might somehow convince Geron to abandon the memory, ‘yes, we are... proficient, in the art of violence…’

‘And I take it you don’t owe ADVENT much?’

‘Oh, we owe them quite a bit,’ Vex interjected, taking a moment to remove a stray strand of hair from her sight before she continued, ‘several arrows to the neck, to start.’

‘And they owe us a cask of ale,’ another rumbled, despondently.

‘Right, right,’ Geron mumbled, waving a hand to cut off the string of grievances, though not in an airy fashion; rather, as he delved deep into his own thought, clearly calculating as a gloved hand was allowed to touch his chin; his eyes narrowed on a rather innocuous portion of the floor. ‘Then here’s your chance; I need to wipe this site clean, but my guess is that ADVENT’s already on route after you kicked up the hornet’s nest, so I need you to buy us some time. Kill them, distract them; really couldn’t care for the specifics, just as long as you keep them off us. If they get the files, we can kiss this cell goodbye.’

‘You live in a prison?’

‘No, how did…’ he paused, trying to ascertain if the gnome that had called himself Scanlan on their initial, haphazard introductions after Grog’s violent entry, was attempting to simply take the mickey. ‘Never mind. Put it this way; they get in, we’re screwed. So, think you can handle it?’

‘Oh we can handle it,’ Vex started, ‘but who’s to say we are to handle it?’

There was a moment of silence as Geron tried to comprehend the message in Vex’s words. By the time he reached that understanding, he was hardly pleased, for he seemed to puff up like a cobra, although it was difficult to discern whether it was legitimate rage, or a desperate attempt to intimidate those he knew to hold all the cards

‘If you lot have a pair of braincells to rub together,’ he started, ‘you’d know well enough that it’s your only chance to get out of here alive. Sure, you might have killed the bastard Overseer; God knows he had it coming, but if you so much as take a step out there on your own, and ADVENT will eat you alive. If that really was you that took down that transport earlier, they’ll be sending everything they can to tear you a new one, and everyone standing next to you that is.’

There was a barb in that; it was impossible to miss, yet Geron made no effort to ensure they understood his loathing for their destruction of what must have been a fairly stable life at the heart of his enemy. It was the thin veil of a desperate man; a man who had every reason to detest those before him, yet needed their employment to stand even the slightest chance of witnessing another sunrise.

‘Look,’ resumed Vax, taking over before his sister could get into a full blown debate over their paycheck, ‘we’re not asking for much, but as you might see, we’re slightly under equipped to be dealing with this many guns, if what you’re saying is true. Can you at least provide us with...I don’t know, some armements that we might be able to actually use to keep them off you?’

They were met with a skeptical gaze, much as if their Rouge had just waved a flag of red before a bleary eyed bull that had not quite adjusted to the daylight, but as the scrape of steel cabinets punctuated the air above the ad hoc medical center, they could see he was on the verge of giving in.

‘Guns and ammo aren’t cheap out here,’ he mused, although in a tone bereft of any attempt to bargain; rather, a piteous agony at his gut as the words were ripped from his mouth, like a man parting with a limb, ‘you use them well. Cullings? Muster up what you can spare and arm them up, then post them at the checkpoint.’

‘On it, sir. Right this way, lads.’

* * *

 

‘Has anyone even asked what on earth we’re doing here?’

Percy’s question took them all quite aback, before they somewhat belatedly realised they had diverted their eyes to their gunslinging compatriot, and not the vast forest of shadows cast by the towering structures that lay beyond the small little refuge they had so recently opted to defend. But although the city continued to breathe life; albeit at a subdued, distant murmur as it slept, as opposed to the chaos that began at dawn; the night was still quite. At least for now.

‘Well,’ went Vax, having recovered from the sudden spark of conversation, ‘buying some time for our friends in there…’

‘...Killing shit.’ added Grog, with an air of elation, as if he were a small child whose hands were gracing the smooth edges of a christmas present.

‘...kill some of these bastards in the process,’ Vax was still saying, not quite realising his titanic friend had already covered that portion of the itinerary until it was too late to remedy repetition, ‘and then; then I think we’re getting the hell out of here. Did I miss anything?’

‘Only trying not to die in the process,’ Pike added, ‘but other than that, we’re good.’

‘I meant more as in ‘ _ what are we doing fighting here _ ?” Percy remedied, before he saw their confusion and moved to clarify the rather dubious statement, just before Keyleth could remind him of the lives at stake. ‘Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying we abandon them, or anything like that; we finish up here, but after that, what then? Anargyros is God knows where by now, and he’s probably our only ticket off this rock.’

‘Eh, rock?’ Grog asked, somewhat confused as he took a glance towards his feet, ‘I see a street, Perc, not a rock.’

‘Figuratively, Grog. Has anyone else realised the stars are completely out of alignment?’

Their gazes turned skyward, but only a few of their number, namely Keyleth and the two elven siblings, were immediately disconcerted by the sight that met them. The others could only marvel at the sight, before they turned to those of their number better versed in astrology to realise something was truly amise. 

‘I can’t find Emon’s star,’ Percy explained, gesticulating toward the vague area of the sky he had expected to find Tal’Dorei’s constant star, ‘and the constellations are all way out of alignment…’

‘Which would mean?’ went Scanlan, titling his head back down to the suspiciously empty road, having taken his fill of astrology and knowledge for the evening.

‘I don’t think we’re even on the same planet.’

There was a mixed bag of reactions to that suspicion, as more than a few eyes turned in disbelief to the only true human in their midst. After more than a few trials into the madness beyond the physical realm, there was at least an absence of any absolute defiance to the logic, but that did not immediately translate to a situation wherein Vox Machina would simply embrace the fact they had somehow landed on a chunk of rock in orbit about an entirely different star. Cynicism and trust in Percy’s astrology battled one another in their eyes, but as they looked upon the landscape that surrounded them once more: the cold and dispassionate glow of the lights cast without flame; the endless grey steel and mortar that plastered every inch of their sight, and the strict, abhorrent control of the little nature that remained, in the form of a trail of evenly cut grass dug into between two roads maybe some twenty meters away, without a tree in sight, that particular scenario was becoming increasingly probable by the minute. So much so that Vex even drew back in visible shock, her eyes widening in fear…

Of course, it was only after her hand moved for the quiver at her back that they realised it was probably less to do with their journey out of Tal’Dorei’s borders, and more to do with the fact that not one, but three of those steel clad skyships were descending on them at a rather alarming speed.

‘That could problematic,’ she mused, before her fingers found the soft touch of the arrow’s fletching, and gently tugged the elegant stake from the quiver, affixing it to the small groove dug into the bow’s grip in one fluid motion.

Then she let the bolt fly.

It was a rare instance that any of Vox Machina could bear witness to the flight of one of Vex’s broadheads: between the half-elf’s deceptively tremendous draw strength hidden behind her lithe form, and the fact that Vex had a habit for blackening the oversized darts with the soot of their last campfire when paint was unavailable, the most they were usually able to make out was a blur of motion that ended at a man or deranged being obsessed with the prospect of hacking one, or all of their heads from their shoulders.  But between the blinding shimmer of spotlights and the glow of the city behind them, the night practically shone brighter than the day, and it took little effort to follow the sharpened silhouette, straight into the rightmost transport. 

At first, Vex had thought to direct the broadhead for the engine unit Pike had identified amid their earlier attempts to bring down the skybound monster, but recalling the heavily armored plate that had thwarted even the stopping power of Percy’s rounds, she had shifted her gaze inward. Like the visor of a knight, there was a slight overhang atop the craft’s bow, that, from an aerial attacker, might have concealed the matted glass port beneath it; a suitably weaker surface than the armored exterior that had defied their conventional efforts thus far. 

Despite the speed of the encroaching intruder, Vex’s aim proved true, and the although the arrow failed to penetrate the reinforced shield, it was still enough to send a shudder through the vessel, as it tilted off to the left, shifting dangerously close to its compatriots in formation.

Belatedly, Vex realised the shield must have protected the captain of the grim vessel, who must have tugged instinctively against the controls, out of fear for the dangerously close shot, and for a moment, she toyed with the prospect that she might have driven him off course, into his flying partners to produce a fireball of ruptured fuel and shredded steel. Saddly, he was quick to correct the error, albeit, with far greater zeal than that which was required. 

Which, while eternally useful to his flight partners, proved lethal to his living cargo, as the dropship swerved back to the right, leaning precariously with the turn, until one, then two and finally three armored forms toppled out of it’s open flank, plummeting toward the ground with every passing moment. A fourth seemed to be on the verge of being similarly disgorged from the safety of his aircraft, but before he could, an armored fist seized him by the chest, and dragged him back inside, frustratingly only moments before Vex’s second arrow could slam into his teetering form. Instead, it ripped through the open air he had only just occupied, sailing cleanly off into the darkness of the night.

‘Think that’ll ruin anyone’s day?’ Scanlan asked, without a trace of concern for whomever found themselves next in line of the arrow’s deadly path.

‘Don’t know,’ Grog rumbled, hefting the axe with a gleeful grin, ‘but I know this will.’

With that, he rocketed off, over the checkpoint’s walls, toward the three forms strewn across the street. Two were unmoving amid the rivers of their own innards, but the last, and closest for that matter, seemed to be stirring. Groggily, he tried to steady himself, relying on one hand to push himself upright from his prone position, before he realised the ground was rising and falling with each pounding step of the goliath. It was the last thought he managed, before the sharpened edge of the battle axe embedded itself in the separation of the plate armor between the peacekeeper’s chest and his right arm.

A distorted screech escaped the trooper’s mouth as the axe, under the full weight of Grog Strongjaw and the indescribable fury burning beneath those glimmering eyes, simply cleaved through the man like a scythe through wheat, carving a relatively clean line through the mixture of flesh and plate, before a hard jerk against the axe head traveled up the handle with surprising force, threatening to wrench it from Grog’s grip iron grip. As the fury died in his hammering heart, and reason, or at least as much reason a Goliath’s brain could process beyond the instinctive need to hit something hard over the head reasserted itself, worked itself to the forefront of Grog’s mind, he realised that the axe had in fact passed through the trooper’s side entirely, slamming into the tarmac of the road, and leaving a disarmed ADVENT soldier on his right, and the aforementioned arm to his left. 

The trooper turned a gaze upon the goliath that he could not understand; fear? Anger? The mask that left only their mouths for display made any effort to pierce the inner workings of their minds a difficult task, much less for someone with an innate will to kill rather than perceive, but with his axe half buried in the roadside, instinct would have to patiently wait it’s turn until it’s instrument could be readied for further use.

Or at least, it might have, if Percy had not jumped the line and depressed the trigger in his grip.

After being thrown out of the relative safety offered by the poorly reinforced sanctuary of Geron’s little band of anarchists, one could have easily added a choice between ‘tight-fisted’ and ‘desperate’ to the list of Geron’s traits, after having chosen to lend only a pair of rusted pistols to Vox Machina’s efforts to defend his home, but on firing the weapon, Percy took back everything he had let loose under his breath in regard to the scrooge. Despite it’s appearance, the rusted six shooter threatened to break his hand as it blasted into the night. And the sights were working well in accordance to Percy’s standards, as the round connected directly with the mewling trooper’s head, throwing him back a good four or five yards before the corpse came to a shuddering halt, twitching in apparent defiance of death, until one realised it’s head was virtually non-existent.

‘Is that it?’ Grog chuckled, finally tearing his axe from its embrace with the ground, before he turned to the city on the horizon, brandishing the bloody blade in one hand high aloft his head, ‘we can do this all night! Bring it on!’

‘Grog…’

Vax was on the verge of advising against the temptation of fate, when an alien shout stopped him. 

‘Ei Corth!’

Just in time, he rounded about to find the three dropships looming perhaps fifteen or twenty meters off the ground, atop the building they had only just taken refuge within, and given their pledge to protect. And in the hold of the closest one; the one scarred by his sister’s arrow, a red caped figure and two escorts stood with their rifles at the ready.

‘Ta’stor!’

In a single moment, the road erupted with fire, as if the air itself had grown livid with their presence. Rock and steel buckled under the barrage, sending further chips of broken material up into the street, tearing at their flesh and peppering their sight, as if it were but a grim prelude to the agony to come if a round found it’s mark. 

Unexpectedly, Vax quickly found himself on the ground, for an impossibly powerful force had barreled his side, overturning the world as he saw it with one, then two painful rolls across the broken ground. 

Still, he thought to himself, it was an infinitely better price than a bolt through the gut, as he felt Trinket nuzzle his bloodied face, and he guided a hand to return the gesture, thanking the bear for its timely intervention with a quick scratch across that little spot beneath the bear’s neck that he seemed to enjoy.

Seemingly emboldened by the disruption of their initial barrage, the three men pressed their advantage, unloading a second volley in Grog’s direction, before one of them cocked his head to the side in unspoken question; evidently sensing something lay amiss, but remaining unable to place its exact nature.

Then it struck him: him, his officer, and his last remaining comrade as a gust of wind with the strength of a vortex tore into their formation.

Guiding the spiralling bolt of power like a lance, Keyleth poured even more of her will into the howling pillar of nature that extended from her open hands, sending one man screaming off his perch into the unknown beyond. A second tried to rise, despite having lost his weapon to the miniature storm, until an arrow buried itself in his throat, and his corpse, now devoid of the sense and purpose to rise, was thrown like a brick from the skyship.

She was on the verge of refocusing the deadly channel to obliterate the last man when a second shout stopped her.

Beneath the steel beast; atop the very roof of the three storey structure they had exited only minutes ago, a red crown appeared, followed by the lower reaches of a face, then a set of broad shoulders encrusted by matted steel, and five more heads. Dimly, he realised the holds of the other two carriers were virtually empty, and that their occupants had descended directly onto the high ground, and a stable firing position. 

‘Ei Corth!’ screamed the captain, and as one, half a dozen rifles braced themselves against  the edge of the chest-high wall atop the roof. At his next command, Vox Machina would be dead.

Except for the fact that the command never came. Instead, direction came from below.

‘Vox Machina!’ Vax shouted, emptying his lungs entirely as his voice rose to fill the entire road, ‘Move! Inside, now!’ 

To their eternal frustration, the sharpshooters watched their prey scatter. Like a herd of deer responding to a stray crack of wood on the wind, their perfectly still forms exploded into motion, throwing off the aim of each hunter as they ducked and weaved toward the doorway beneath the shooters. Still no instruction came. Why did their captain dally? 

It was only a full moment later, when one of their number emitted a surprised squawk that they finally realised he was in fact clutching a tremendous ravine of ichor that had erupted across his throat, as he thrashed about in agony, his every motion only coaxing a further torrent of blood to rush outward at the behest of his beating heart. In the confusion, none of his escorts saw the elegantly crafted blade entrapped within the gruesome trench, even as it faded out of existence, unstopping the devilish steel bandage over the officer’s wound, allowing the tide of yellow liquid to run rampant from its vessel.

Within a minute, he was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a long, long time coming. So much for having more time to focus on writing with the exams over. Yes, it's been an unproductive few weeks, alongside a case of writer's block and a little bit of a spontaneous trip overseas to boot, so I apologise for the delay. But, for now at least, I'm back on track. I hope. First OCs introduced to the tale, so let me know your thoughts: possible improvements, anyone on the popular kill list; etc. Don't worry: this is a cross between XCOM and Critical Role: these guys don't have 'red-shirt' written on them at all...  
> Btw: Thank you Vergil1989 for pointing out some of my grammar issues: sorry to say I've yet to have a chance to go through all of the chapters so far. I've proof read chapters 1-3, but I would like to spend a little more time checking through, so for now at least, I'm afraid you lads might have to sit through my mistakes until the next chapter update. Until then, thank you so much for your support, and I'll see you soon!


	6. Monsters

‘Pandemonium’ only began to encapsulate the sight that met the man, goliath, half-elves, and gnomes of Vox Machina when the steel door was roughly pushed aside at a full sprint. Quite literally, for since Grog’s violent entry into Geron’s stronghold had invariably destroyed every hinge attached to the structure, it had only remained upright through the act of carefully propping it up against the battered door frame that had once held it in place, balanced so that it did not simply give way at an inconvenient time.

Obviously, at least in Grog’s mind at least, ‘now’ qualified as a convenient moment to tear the barricade down once more, as he collided with the heavy set obstruction.

Although it had withstood the initial attempts of Scanlan, who had reached the door first, albeit with a rather diminutive stature that had proven insufficient for brute force, it seemed to visibly shrink away at Grog’s thunderous approach, as if it somehow recalled the last time it had dared to oppose the goliath.

So, for a second time in the past hour, the door flew off it’s hinges, and admitted the titanic barbarian, followed in short order by a winded Scanlan and Pike, who had only just torn the former out of the rampaging goliath’s path before he could be pounded flat between the bull and a solid obstruction. Behind them, Vex slipped through the doorway, her bow drawn to meet any unwanted intruder, before Vax, Keyleth and Percy, along with a rather terrified Trinket, quite literally slammed into her in their haste to escape the crossfire at their backs. And although Vax had been able to register that his sister had in fact stopped to watch for enemies before advancing any further, and commit to a rather instinctive tumble over her and Grog’s shoulders, taking him straight to the forefront of their loose formation atop two feet, his companions were neither as vigilant, nor as agile.

It did not help that Trinket was bringing up the rear, and with the added pressure of a creature weighing well over two-hundred and fifty kilograms racing at full pelt, pushing one forward even if it was not their intent, it would have been a miracle if they had somehow avoided the raised doorstep that met the shattered door frame.

As it turned out, they had expended Luck’s goodwill long ago.

Keyleth took a dive downward, and, reaching out to steady herself, caught onto the first thing within an arm’s reach.

Which, as it turned out, was Vex.

Letting loose a rather unladylike word, or two, Vex similarly hit the ground, narrowly throwing the exposed broadhead out of her line of descent before she could land on the razor edge and rupture an artery. The bow and loose bolt skittered noisily across the ground; the latter of the pair making nearly half a dozen rotations before finally coming to halt against a rather sizable depression in the stone floor, where a tile was noticeably absent from the already patchwork architecture, although if it had simply never arrived at the decrepit site, or been torn away in a fit of rage following one too many a stubbed toe, Vex would never know.

What she did know, as she struggled to untangle herself from Keyleth’s flailing limbs, was that the element of surprise was gone.

Then again, between the firefight beyond the doorway, the repurposing of Grog’s head as a ersatz battering ram, and the pileup at the door, one had to wonder whether stealth had ever truly existed as an option, as two humanoid figures clad in matted plate stared back at the disaster with open mouths, seemingly unable to process the freight train of abnormality that had just bulldozed through the front door.

Around them, the entire room; once a grim and barely lit enclosure with a rather severe case of mildew; was now ablaze. Forked tongues of the ravenous flames engulfed every wall save for the one that supported the destroyed entryway they had only just emerged from, and where there was not a shattered corpse occupying the ground, glistening coals that still vented their furious last breathes amid clouds of embers carpeted the ground. Now that the issue of light had been solved by ADVENT’s explosive rooftop intrusion, it appeared that Geron, or at least someone with a rudimentary and woefully inadequate sense of architecture, had installed several crude wooden reinforcements to the corners of the room, and a good portion of the ceiling, although on a closer inspection, the edges of a rock floor still crept from the corners of the roof, perhaps suggesting that the poorly conceived apartment had already suffered a structural collapse, that had been quickly repaired with a series of wooden planks laid in no particular order over the compromised flooring.

Of course, it appeared that the architect of that particular decision had not accounted for the possibility of an assault by heavily armed shock troops with access to incendiary devices, which went some ways as to explaining why old ceiling was virtually non-existent, leaving a clear sight of the floor above, and if one were to divert a substantial degree of concentration to the breach, away from the enemy combatants that were on the verge of cutting the members of Vox Machina into a cruder substitute for processed meat, they would have also been able to witness the floor above, and the next, before finally reaching night’s canopy high above, obscured by smoke as it was. In fact, viewed from above, it looked as if ADVENT had simply blasted through every floor of the building with an extravagant stockpile of high explosives, creating a tunnel through the heart of Geron’s safehouse, before rappelling down the rabbit hole to confront the dissidents.

Even so, an eternity seemed to pass as both sides simply stared at one another, frozen by uncertainty, before it apparently registered in the minds of every combatant that both they and their opponents were carrying lethal weapons. Then, in the blink of an eye, the two brigades; one woefully outnumbered, and the other with nearly half of their number entrapped in a ball of twisted limbs and fabric, sprang at one another as best they could.

The first dagger cleared the leather sheath on Vax’s hip in the blink of an eye, but the man he’d been aiming to impale through the mouth had already begun to fumble for his weapon; his head slanting to the left as he worked to bring the heavy rifle up to his eye. The motion saved his life, as the blade hurtled past the exposed section of flesh beneath his visor, flashing across the side of his helmet with a resounding scrape; the angle defeating it’s razor edge, before it passed harmlessly into the flames at the trooper’s back.

It was already phasing back to the Rouge’s hip, but by then, it was too late, as the long rifle snapped to bear, and a lance of red light split the air.

Thankfully, Vax’s throw had at least served to unnerve the trooper sufficiently to only place a token effort in guiding the shot; with the vast majority of his mind occupied with avoiding a second blade to the neck as it was, the magnetically accelerated round shrieked upward, sailing well above even Grog’s head before it shattered an indistinguishable panel of the rough wall, leaving a hole the size of a dinner plate where it had punched through the material, and continued on without care.

Despite himself, Vax could not help but detect a rather unpleasant obstruction in his throat at the simple sight of the damage. The thought of that broken wall being replaced by flesh and sinew was not an image he would have prefered to erase from his mind as quickly as possible, even as he swallowed down the manifestation of fear, and reached for his second blade.

But it was an unnecessary precaution at best, since by the time he had ripped his eyes back to the offending trooper, the tin man already toppling back, probably in no small part thanks to another cacophonous blast from the miniaturized cannon held aloft in Percy’s outstretched hand.

His companion, on the other hand, seemed to have placed all his trust in the old, and heavily contested, axiom that a good offense constituted to a fine defense, and promptly charged headlong at the disrupted, albeit heavily armed line of misfits.

At first, Vax was almost certain that either some long standing mental condition, or perhaps a combination of combat fatigue and stress at the sight of his headless comrade, had convinced the gunman to close the range; an assessment that was reinforced all the further when he saw the man throw his rifle aside.

Strangely, unlike his erstwhile ally, this one seemed to have disregarded the safety offered by a full helmet; instead, a visor with a hellishly red tint concealed the upper portion of his face. Much as if he’d decided to catch fish from a bowl and somehow managed to entrap his head within the confines of the glass cell amid his zeal, Vax thought to himself, as his own blade cleared it’s sheath; ever so slightly warm to the touch from where it had just recently entered the inferno that engulfed the far side of the room.

But amid his amusement at the deplorable display of stupidity, Vax did not quite see the baton clenched in the maniac’s fist until the uncomfortable whine of charging energy seeped into his ears, and he turned his eyes barely in time to see several teeth seemingly erupt from the rod, each crackling with a rather concerning electrical charge.

‘That could be an issue,’ he managed to mutter under his breath, before the remainder of his thought was forced to remain unannounced, for it was profoundly difficult to verbally iterate his opinion on his opponent whilst summoning every effort to avoid decapitation, as the savage blade swept down for the fleshy trunk of his neck.

Acting out of instinct rather than conscious will, Vax threw himself earthwards in a rather human manner; that is to say, entirely lacking the elegance and grace one might have expected of an elf as he felt the air empty out of his lungs with the hard impact.

Still, at least he was breathing, and it was enough time to arm himself for the gutter fight to come. Clutching the black dagger in one hand, he rammed the serrated edge forward, between the separated joints of the armored suit that had, until encountering the Rouge of Syngorn, protected his thigh and more...sensitive regions.

Vax could not be sure if the involuntary holler of revulsion from above was in response to the venom or the mutilation of vital organs, but what he did know was that every second the ADVENT trooper was obsessed with his most recent injury, he was not paying any attention to the man, or rather half-human, that assumed full responsibility for the surgery.

It was his last mistake, as Vax tore the dagger back, and with the gore-encrusted blade still clutched in a bloodied hand, he lunged for the kill, cutting an innocuous line across the combatant's throat that initially seemed trivial at worst. At least, it remained so for a measure of two seconds, before the mortal clasped his throat, convulsing as a tide of yellow ichor spilled from the incision and his mouth alike, creating a wholly distasteful pond of the foul liquid at his feet that Vax only narrowly managed to avoid.

‘I’m not sure if I like these guys any more than the rifles,’ Percy admitted, eying the contraption with a combination of both physical unease, and irrepressible scientific curiosity. ‘Fascinating device though, I have to admit.’

‘I don’t know,’ grunted Grog; his shoulders somewhat slouched as he realised there was not another opponent in sight, unable to hide his disappointment that Vax had beaten him to the kill, ‘looks kinda flimsy.’

‘Well you couldn’t put as much strength behind it as an axe,’ Percy admitted, trying to salvage his interest in the devilish instrument, ‘but it’ll be a rather nasty surprise nonetheless if you got that rammed up the rear entry.’

‘Don’t you mean exit, Percy?’ Scanlan jibed, a mischievous glint in his eye as he tried to rib his compatriot in the side, only to recall at the last moment that he was a good deal shorter than the gunslinger, so the gesture practically amounted to gently tapping the knee of the white haired gentleman in their midst. Not that a little misstep of the kind would ever stop Scanlan, as he raised his gaze to meet Percy’s eye, rather oblivious to the raging inferno about them. ‘I mean, I don’t know what weird stuff you and Vax get up to, but things usually come out of that end; know what I mean?’

The gunslinger turned a baleful gaze on his diminutive ally, perhaps in the hopes of convincing the gnome that his unassuming size would not help to protect him if he pushed the joke any further, but Scanlan showed no signs of backing down.

At least until Pike, who seemed to be the only one with enough sense to recall they were still in the midst of a war zone, offered him a lifeline.

‘Look, if anything,’ she started, lowering herself toward the ground where the blade resided, ‘it’s loot, right? That should be reason enough for you materialistic lot…’

There had been far more on the cleric’s mind, but they would never be known to the other members of Vox Machina, as Pike suddenly let out a tiny gasp of air at the pitch of a squeak, before she promptly rocketed back, convulsing about the ground as some invisible, malevolent force apparently seized control of her tethers, and was still trying to figure out exactly which string controlled which limb when her friends reached her.

‘Pike?’ Scanlan asked, Percy all but forgotten, ‘Pike, are you OK?’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘I don’t know!’ Vax shot back, as he reached the gnome, ‘she just touched that stupid sword!’

‘She’s not...dead is she?’

‘Not again! Perc, you and your bloody curiosity…’

‘I didn’t tell her to pick it up! Hell, Pike, wake up!’

‘Is she even breathing?’

Keyleth’s question seemed to have been answerable by the eye alone, since in the wake of witnessing the flailing mess that now constituted Pike Trickfoot, the question was not so much as to whether Pike was still alive; merely just how much pain she was in at the present moment. Her eyes were clamped tight in a harrowing grimace, and her unpredictable movements were frustrating any attempt to treat the mysterious ailment, even as Scanlan reeled back, clutching the reddened mark across his cheek from where one of Pike’s uncontrolled hands, each fitted with an armored gauntlet, had torn a shallow gash through the flesh.

And in a final bid to catapult the lot of them into the definitive area of ‘ongoing-disaster’, fate decided to throw two final snags in the works. Two ‘snags’ that, as chance would have it, were carrying high calibre magnetic rifles, and approaching from the unseen flank of the clustered company.

By the time the first shot rang out, it was too late.

‘Ambush!’ Vex managed to gasp, pulling Keyleth behind her as they ducked back through the doorframe into the night’s cold, ‘get out of the open!’

Her brother and Scanlan, who stood a good deal shorter than the average man’s torso, managed to evade fury of the incoming rounds long enough to place a similar bulwark between them and their pursuers, but Percy and Grog were not so lucky, as they turned about, just in time to watch the red lances of light tear pierce the air that surrounded them.

Then, not quite in unison; they toppled to the ground alongside their fallen cleric, each pawing at wounds approximately the sizes of large apples.

For a moment, Vex was tempted to dive back out into the open, and drag the pair out of the line of fire, but a second hail of steel darts into the weakening frame that concealed her and Keyleth from sight quickly put an end to those aspirations. Wading out ahead of two gunmen, armed with haste and a cloak as she was, still translated loosely to suicide for both herself and her friends, who would then be forced to deal with four wounded in the open. Instead, she forced herself to suppress the bloody image imprinted in her mind; her eye falling only upon the notch at the bow’s center, as she fitted another blackened broadhead past the worn shelf, and slid the shaft back into it’s place, interlocking it’s arms with the bowstring.

She was on the verge of asking Keyleth for a diversion of some kind, but as she was turning to the druid, she glimpsed red within her peripheral.

The wound must have only registered to Keyleth only a second before Vex had turned about, since she seemed to be equally surprised at the liquid that encrusted her fingertips, before she reached back down to her side, trying her best to staunch the outpouring tide with a gauze of interlaid digits; an act Vex was on the verge of attributing to combat stress, until she spotted the familiar light pulse through the druid’s bloody hands; it’s illumination somewhat dulled by the reddened visage.

Even so, the druid would be of no aid for the moment, Vex decided. After the disastrous evening, Keyleth was looking visibly exhausted, as spell upon spell had been thrown in their enemy’s direction, only to be replaced by another. Alongside the prodigious stain that coated her left side, it was clear that for the moment at least, Vex was on her own.

Letting a pent up breath go to the cold night’s embrace, before filling her lungs once again, Vex set her eyes upon the rough sights she’d carved into the longbow’s curved edge, and in one fluid movement, she rounded the corner; the arrow drawn back to its full, lethal draw, and released.

With the full power of the bow’s extended limbs behind the shot, the broadhead punched through the trooper’s helmet, and he dropped like a stone, as his arms threw up his rifle in reflexive dismay, before they tried to clutch the stake affixed to their master’s broken mind. Then, a belated second later, they realised too seemed to accept the cruel reality of their own demise, and they allowed gravity to take over, flopping ingloriously to either side.

His partner was upon her in an instant, and the ranger was forced to duck low beneath the renewed direction of fire. A round, or maybe more; it was difficult to tell in the instant, ripped into the wooden frame, sending up a shower of splinters with their passage, and Vex received a long gash across her cheek for her defiance of the ‘peacekeepers’, though it was shallow and, in the heat of the adrenaline rush, indistinguishable in the ranger’s mind, as she tried to calculate her chances of making a second shot without being turned into a cadaver.

But her fears were quickly proven to be unfounded, as a rather distinctive, and terrifically scathing melody traversed the air that surrounded her, and her hunter.

‘Oh there once was a bold tin can with a rifle and piss poor aim…’

Immediately, there was a distinctive ‘click’ of steel, as the trooper shifted his aim to the source. It proved to be his last mistake, as two more broadheads split the air, and introduced themselves to his throat in no short order.

‘…but then he met the ranger Vax’ahlia who promptly turned him into a hedgehog in spite of his pleas,’ finished the off-key limerick.

‘How many times?’ Vax’s voice was heard, from behind the very same crate that had insulted a heavily armed gunman, ‘Vax…’

‘Ah, I nearly had it,’ the gnome responded, hardly listening as he emerged into the open; a grandiose air in his step as if he had just conducted a masterpiece. Or, as it was in Scanlan’s case, any piece. ‘Besides, ‘Vax went better with that.’

Vex could only shake her head in dismay. Scanlan’s artistic judgement was questionable at it’s very best, but although she was tempted to dive into another argument over his tendency to interchange their names at will, she still had enough wits to recognise some priorities.

Like the three members of their party who were still cast like ragdolls across the ground in a collective pool of blood that was growing in radius with each passing moment.

Gingerly, she made her way over to the assortment of bodies, keeping a careful watch on the corridor as she did so.

Her brother had already done so by the time she had traversed the hallway, and had his hands pressed to Pike’s head, sending a similar golden channel of light through the conduit of flesh. Meanwhile, the bard himself had popped open the cork of a battered glass bottle containing a rather suspect red liquid that would have probably prompted no small magnitude of questions if advertised to the uneducated for usage in a medical field, despite its exact function for such.

In spite of the gravity of the situation, Vex was unable to suppress a grimace as she recognised the fact it was not the first potion Scanlan had opened, given the two bottles that already lay beside a dazed Grog; each of which still contained a damning residual trace within their confines. And he was already opening a third one! She was tempted to scream, but after running a quick calculus of the exact value she placed on their investments and the lives of her friends, she thought better of it. Or at least, it was a quick calculus by Vex’s standards. Others in her company might have compared the effort to a full dissection of economic value, but thankfully for the ranger, they would never know.

Particularly since any thought of voicing the assessment was lost as another loud crash resonated through the structure, and a wall gave way barely five meters ahead, to admit a shrieking ADVENT trooper, and a wild-eyed Geron.

His blade hovered over the defiant knight; held aloft only by two gauntleted hands that had arrested it’s downward movement by the wrist, but even with one hand behind the motion, it was inching ever closer to it’s mark.

And Geron had two.

Whilst the trooper struggled to hold back the dagger’s point, he was all but powerless to protect himself from the guerrilla fighter’s fury, as his left hand balled into a fist, and his arm curled back, only to collapse out at the elbow.

The crooked limb struck the inside of the trooper’s right arm, and his hold buckled, until the point came to a rest only centimeters from the soldier’s neck. Still he fought with the desperation of a dead man.

Until Geron twisted the knife away from it’s intended target; off to the right.

No longer facing the force head on, but still clutching the instrument with savage determination, the trooper’s hands followed it down, until it embedded itself in the hard plywood that layered the ground.

At first, Vex was inclined to predict the trooper was on the verge of turning the tables on the human commander, and without thinking, another arrow had entered her bowstring. But the downward stroke had pulled the man’s armored limbs to the side, leaving the soft padding that covered his neck completely exposed.

A second later, and it was over, as Geron’s left hand, still clenched tight into a ball, landed three savage strokes into the windpipe of the peacekeeper. And with that, the grip upon Geron’s wrist disappeared, for the pain was sufficient to force the trooper to release his iron-clad grasp, to seize his mutilated throat with both hands.

What followed was more of a formality at best; a bloody, horrifically brutal formality, that is, when Geron wrenched the pinned blade out from the floorboards, and proceeded to hammer the blade through the dying man’s head, time and time again like clockwork. It carried on for a good while, until it apparently registered in his head that there were people watching. Or maybe, given the indifferent look Vex received, it had simply occurred to him that no one could survive twenty stab wounds to the forehead.

‘You lot took your damn time,’ he spat, extending his knee until they stood at approximately the same height, ‘you get any of the bastards?’

‘Four,’ Vex replied, somehow unable to return the drawn arrow to her quiver while in the man’s presence, ‘but they just bypassed us: landed on the roof…’

‘Yeah, I should have seen it coming,’ he muttered, more to himself than any other, ‘Jesus, it’s a mess. You seen Hemming?’

‘Who’s Hemming?’

‘Short, scrawny kid, fucked-up cheek, brown hair?’

Vex could only shake her head.

‘Dammit,’ he sighed, wiping the yellowed blade against his most recent victim’s corpse until the steel beneath the ichor returned to sight, ‘if he didn’t come down, they’ll have the files.’

‘What files?’ Vax interjected, sparing a glance from his work as he continued to nurse their cleric back to her feet, ‘they important?’

‘Nothing you need to know,’ Geron shot, suspicion suddenly darkening his eyes, ‘just hold down this intersection; I’ll be back, just don’t even think about jumping ship...’

‘They’re coming!’

The unexpected scream threw the assembled company into disarray almost as quickly as the uneasy calm had settled upon them, as five men and women; each sharing a similar khaki vest to the one that adorned Geron’s chest, pelted down the corridor from the opposite direction, before trio of plated demons appeared in hot pursuit, fingers held upon triggers as they moved.

One of the fleeing men seemingly tripped upon the flat floor, and kicked up at the air, falling flat upon his front without a single measure of grace, but his compatriots managed to dive behind the columns that flanked the aisle, concealing them for a vital moment from their relentless hunters.

Emboldened as they were by their most recent kill, the ADVENT patrol pushed onward, until it suddenly struck them that, face to face with two cloaked individuals, their bear, a rather stubby but undeniably confident gnome, a weary but determined druid and a madman soaked in the blood of their own that they were suddenly outnumbered.

Fortunately for them, that is, if one were to search long and hard for the slightest glimmer of light in the depths of the darkest cave, it was an error none of them would live very long to regret.

* * *

 

‘Gods, I feel like I got into a fight with a giant,’ Pike muttered, holding her head in both hands, a couple of minutes later. 

‘Did you win at least?’ Scanlan offered unhelpfully.

‘Um, no,’ came the soft reply, ‘just give me a minute, or three.’

‘They’re gonna have to be fast minutes,’ Geron interjected, as he stormed over to their side, ‘what did you do?’

‘I might have…’ Pike trailed off, a vacant look suddenly seizing her features, ‘actually, what the hell was I doing? I really can’t…’

‘Percy had you pick up the zap stick.’ One could always look to Scanlan for the ‘unaltered’ truth.

‘You…how the hell are you still…never mind,’ Geron trailed off, taking in the little gnome before him with no small degree of effort, ‘just never do that again; I’ve lost too many people to that shit.’

‘What exactly happened?’ Vax inquired.

Geron did not seem to appreciate the question, as if it somehow suggested his word alone was insufficient, but he answered it nevertheless.

‘They installed some kind of high voltage electrical charge into the handles of their weapons,’ he went on, ‘each weapon’s gene coded to the user, so if you’re not the registered user, well…that shock should be enough to fry your organs outright.’

‘Not a human’s organs,’ Scanlan mused, a mischievous glint lighting up in his eyes, ‘you willing to take another for the team, Pikey?’

‘I think I’ll sit this one out,’ was all they managed to get from the Cleric..

‘Alright, so no damn loot, but if that’s the case,’ Vax returned, drawing that cautious eye once again, ‘what’s this about documents? Do we really need them? Because I don’t know about you, but I don’t think we can win this.’

For once, there was no protest at that assessment. Although Vox Machina had developed a rather unhealthy habit of biting off far more than they could collectively chew, a combination of quick wits, raw luck, and a decent dose of poor judgement had often convinced them that fate was on their side.

This time though, with half of their number gravely injured or unconscious after a single volley of accurate fire, and a legion more on the way, it would have taken a fool to convince them victory was a certain probability.

And there was the small fact that their most hot-headed member of the company was still laid flat on his titanic back in spite of being force fed two health potions.

But as the grim assessment was made, protest emerged from the most unexpected of places: from beyond the hard headed fellowship of hard knocks.

‘We leave those files,’ Geron started, unslinging his matted rifle into the palm of his hand, ‘and ADVENT will tear this city apart.’

‘What the hell is so important about them?’

‘They have everything!’ The words were ripped from Geron’s mouth, and the second they were, they could see the regret stitched into his eyes. He’d let slip far more than he had intended, but as he watched his world crumble, he was pushed over the edge to make a leap of faith, and simply hope they provided some soft bedding. ‘They have everything; informants, rendezvous points, dead drop sites; I could go on, but do you really want to know how much they could resize our asses if they got a hold of it?’

‘Won’t it just go up with the flames?’

‘The papers will, but the electronic back up on the hard drives? I’m not leaving that to chance.’

He started moving down the way from which his two men had just recently escaped from, but he mistimed a step and dropped to one knee, as a groan escaped his lips despite his best efforts to contain it.

It was only then that they saw the sizable trace of blood that had spilled across his gut, and continued to do so from a torn, darkened patch of the dense fabric that encapsulated his form.

Immediately, Vex moved to catch him, but he threw aside her hand with a derisive snarl, baring his teeth like a caged animal. Instinct called for the Ranger to simply bat him across the cheek for his insolence, but Vex reined herself in as she saw the moment of fury fade as soon as it had emerged; his will to see his duty complete having proven indiscernible from irrational rage in that fleeting second.

‘I’m fine,’ he snapped through the grimace, planting his offending hand against the darkened fatigues, ‘just get…’

‘You’re in no shape to go after the files,’ Vex protested, retreating to a safer distance, ‘just leave it!’

‘And how many will die?’

‘Look, just tell me what the damn thing looks like,’ shot her brother, ‘I’ll get them; you all just stay here, and don’t think about leaving me behind, alright? I’ll be in and out, quick.’

‘Vax, we can’t split up; we don’t know what’s out there. Besides, we need you here to get Perc and Grog back on their feet.’

‘I might be well done, but I’m not dead yet!’

The violent assertion caught the company off guard, and more than a few had to turn about from the little circle they had invariably formed as Geron’s secrets were exchanged, in some subconscious bid to preserve them from the ears of the fire that threatened to engulf them. 

‘Pike,’ Vex started, but the gnome would not be dissuaded.

‘I took the Sentinel’s vows long before I joined up with you lot, and on that day, I promised I’d preserve the lives of this earth, even if that duty may cost me of my own, Vex. Vax? Do what you need to do, and I’ll get us ready to move.’

‘You can’t go alone!’ Vex protested.

‘Look Vex, one man’s gonna draw a hell of a lot less attention than two. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t think ADVENT’s the type to spare the wounded…’

‘They don’t.’ Came the dour reply of a man upon whom their sentiment was wasted.

‘...I need you to keep a hold on things down here; keep an eye out while Pike patches us up, alright? Geron, what does it look like?’

‘Second floor, third left; right of the doorway: it’ll be on a thumbdrive plugged the largest computer terminal there; you can’t miss it. Damn thing blinks like a strobe.’

‘A what?’

‘A light, a flashing blue light! Just get moving!’

‘I’m on it; don’t you worry; I’ll be back in a jiffy.’

‘Vax…’

The warning glance from his twin sister went all but unnoticed, as Vax’ildan slipped the darkened hood back over his head, obscuring his features once again in darkness.

‘I’ll be fine,’ was the only condolence he offered.

Then he was gone.

* * *

 

Placing his trust in the shifting flames, or more specifically the shadows that they cast, Vax moved at a crouch, with his head tucked to the level of his waist as his legs continued to advance at full stride. While he certainly could have progressed with greater caution, the inferno provided a good enough cover for the movement one might have traced to his shifting form.

And, on a rather important side note, the heat and toxins it was belching with each passing second was a sufficient incentive to adopt a hastier, if far more dangerous, course of approach.

At least in his lowered position, he was able to avoid the worst of the fumes, and the tremendous hole ADVENT had blown into the roof of the structure had at least given the smoke some means of escaping. But as he weathered the broken corridors further and further from the breach, so too did the toxins worsen, and he was forced ever lower to the ground, slowing him ever more.

Pulling the blackened linen mask up to his nose helped to filter at least a portion of the ashes, particularly after he had emptied a portion of his waterskin into the fabric, providing a degree of protection from the smoke that choked the air, but in spite of his readiness, Vax could not help but suspect he’d underestimated the task at hand.

But having committed to his course, the rogue could see no option but to push on. Though he was certainly far from reckless, once a plan had been set into motion, Vax was hardly one to surrender. Deviate, perhaps, if the conditions favored it to achieve the objective, but abandon it all together?

He’d be dead before that was the case.

And, he thought grimly to himself as he suppressed another compulsion to wheeze and hack at the acrid stench that assailed his lungs, that could well be the case in a couple of moments if he tarried too long.

The door Geron had coughed out was open upon his arrival; something Vax was not entirely certain if he was to take as an ill-omen or not, until he saw that the remnants of the door were literally laying five meters away from their frame, shattered into at least four different pieces.

Deciding some manner of forced entry had occurred, and by a rather well muscled combatant to boot, Vax found his hands quickly filled by two daggers once again, just as a whine hissed across the air. It was a high pitched, whirl of power, that sounded vaguely as if a jet of water had been fired across a room, albeit with far more stopping power than a ration of fluid, given the scream that followed only a second later.

‘Definitely a problem,’ he assessed, before he stepped into the room, following the wall of a cubical that had been placed directly to the right of the doorway, to be nearly flattened by something that, at first glance, might have been mistaken for a rather large stone.

That is until it hit the ground with a wet impact, and Vax realised it was in fact a body. Or rather, a portion of a man’s torso that was missing the right arm, a section of the shoulder, and everything below the waist. And the small matter of his head.

Cautiously, and somewhat tepidly, Vax allowed his head to tilt ever so slightly about the corner of the workstation; the threat of suffocation all but forgotten; to find a looming shadow in the billowing clouds of smoke.

It stood a head or two taller than a man, and retained a peculiar silhouette, for it’s upper body was gravely disproportionate to its legs, and arms. It nearly looked as if someone had grafted a golem’s torso to a human’s set of limbs, but Vax shrugged off the thought. It was still by no means as large as Keyleth when she so chose to turn herself into a rampaging engine of rock and destruction, but that did not translate to say the creature was harmless. The mutilated body that had been tossed in his direction had provided sufficient evidence of its prowess, and as it stalked the black mist, he noticed it too carried a pipe-like contraption slung between its arms, although unlike Percy’s contraptions, and even the rifles held by the local peacekeepers, this one seemed to emit a glimmer of jade along the midsection of it’s haft; one that pierced even the darkness of the ash with clarity as it swung the heavy instrument about.

Vax should have guessed that the gesture was not a simple show for his benefit, since only a moment later, the whine of energy punctuated the air, and a solid beam of green light erupted from the rifle’s tip, tracing a solid line a second silhouette that had escaped Vax’s initial observation when his eyes had fallen on the tremendous foot soldier. Another scream.

In that moment, the rouge threw all caution to the winds. Snapping his ankles together and feeling the familiar torrent of sorcery course through his veins until he could no longer feel the weight of his form, Vax launched himself like an arrow across the room, accelerating to a full sprint in a blink of an eye as the blades left his hand.

Of course, trading accuracy for speed as he did, Vax should not have been entirely surprised that his first blade met only thin air as it sailed easily above the brute’s head, before it connected with a rather scorched timber support that lined the buckling roof hilt first.

Thankfully, it was bereft of enough power to knock the teetering plank off it’s legs, and send the entire structure plummeting upon their heads, but the noise must have proven audible even amidst the roaring flames, for the titanic silhouette was upon the sound in an instant; his mewling victim forgotten as he discharged the energy lance a third time; well before he’d even acquired a target. It was an instinctive, bestial call for surival’s sake alone; one that departed any training that could have been instilled upon a warrior on a sun-lit field. The reality was often all too quick for a calculated approach.

Which was sadly the case for not only the ruthless murderer, but also Vax himself, because it was only as the brute’s shoulders slumped in false relaxation that the rouge realised his back was shaped like a tortoise: an immaculate, rounded shell that his blades; honed as they were, would have no chance of piercing.

A theory that was quickly cemented as fact when the second dagger; initially on course to put out a glowing amber eye; ricocheted off the beetle-like construct to enter an uncontrolled spin into open space.

But although Vax was already bemoaning the unfortunate turn of events, both he and his opponent had forgotten one, little essential detail: that the blade of fate bore two edges. And they cared not for whom they felled: simply as long as their undying thirst for blood was slaked.

In its hurry to meet his tormentor, it never quite occurred to the behemoth that his own face did carry the same protective qualities as the armor that adorned his back, and with Vax having only observed the failure of his blades to pierce the armored carapace after having committed to a headlong sprint, the rouge’s blades were still outstretched at an arm’s length when they collided with the turning brute.

Vax ignored the bestial cry, for maintaining his balance as he swung himself into a roll over the hulking creature’s back was quickly proven to be far more difficult than he’d initially anticipated, since despite its fleshy appearance, the actual skin of the warrior was as thick as a tanned hide, and Vax was nearly dragged back by the simple fact his blades had anchored themselves deep in the beast’s head, moving only an inch with his full body weight behind their motion before they came to a bloody halt.

But the rouge was fast enough to adapt, and somewhat belatedly, he let go of the blades, and tumbled to the ground, catching and re-centering himself just in time with a roll that took him out of reach of the monster’s furious backhanded swing.

Furious and half blind with rage, the armored brute threw up two meaty hands for it’s savaged head, abandoning the cumbersome rifle as he did so, to clasp the sharpened instruments that remained embedded deep within it’s flesh. There was an audible squelch as the bruiser’s hands gripped Vax’s blades and retracted them with violent ferocity, drawing two ugly rivers of ill, yellow blood, yet the alien seemed entirely unawares as to damage it had inflicted upon itself: fury apparently proving a sufficient anesthetic even as it stared down the half-elf that had dared to oppose it.

With a war cry that vaguely resembled that of an badly antagonised elephant that had taken an exception to pacifism to neutralise a particularly troublesome predator with extreme prejudice, the armored monster began to advance; the blades that filled it’s hands seemingly akin to children's’ toys in it’s balled fists.

Which might have posed quite a threat to Vax’s well being, if the two daggers had not abruptly vanished from the creature’s crushing grip.

Whispering a quiet thanks for whichever sorcerer had seen it fit to imprint a memory into whatever blade found its home within the belt that lay affixed to Vax’s waist, the rouge felt the familiar, feather-like weight of the two blades return to his sides, even as they defied the laws of physics; fading back existence with a soft whisper of arcane sorcery on the wind, before they sat nonchalant within their respective sheathes, seemingly oblivious to their unnatural re-entry into realspace.

They did not remain there for long, as Vax snatched them upright once again, giving each an experimental spin within the palm of each hand. Then, satisfied they would cut through the titan’s flesh well enough, he entrapped them between the surface of his fingers and his palms; their sharpened points aligned directly to the gigantic figure barely twenty feet away.

‘Make your move.’

Sadly, the taunt fell quite flat on the bestial intelligence that surveyed the half-elf, as it cocked its head, squinting in heavy though as it tried to dissect the exact meaning of the half-elf’s changing mouth structure. But although the words failed to illustrate the message, the two daggers seemingly did the trick in iterating the fact that one of the pair would not be leaving the room alive.

It seemed violence was a part and parcel of the creature’s dialogue, and it responded in kind. By ripping a steel framed desk from the ground, and hurling it after the cloaked elf.

Instinctively, Vax pressed himself against the floor, barely a moment before the improvised projectile sent the air rippling in the wake of its passage. As it turned out though, the maneuver was hardly necessary, since the creature’s aim had not judged the rouge’s position with the greatest accuracy, and the sorry remnants of someone’s workspace sailed perhaps a full meter away from the space Vax had previously occupied, before it sundered itself against the opposing wall, sending up a shower of burning embers from the flame-ravaged support.

But upon rising from the bed of ashes that now carpeted the former office, Vax would find no respite, as the thunderous crunch of heavy footfalls nearly deafened him entirely.

For a creature of such immense size, it moved at a startling rate; one that nearly might have ended Vax’ildan where he stood if he had not sent a blade flying in an underarm toss; right into the exposed flesh of the warrior’s face. The low arch of the throw took it directly beneath the ape’s arms, which had begun to flail wildly ahead of it in a bestial and uncoordinated effort to stop the oncoming response, but as such, it practically achieved little more than a superficial scratch; failing to pierce the thick, leathery hide that protected even the most exposed regions of his adversary.

And as it realised the stunted little man before it could do naught but tickle him, it’s confidence grew; it’s arms fell away from it’s eyes, pulling back like the arms of a crossbow in preparation to break the half-elf’s skull.

Two more meters.

Praying his judgement had not forsaken him, Vax moved.

In a blur of motion, the keen edge left his hand; completed two rotations through the air, and was in the midst of it’s third when the sharpened tip connected with a glowering, yellow pupil.

Immediately, the ape collapsed to the side, flattening the remnants of a cubical as it tried in vain to dislodge the unyielding lance that had taken up residence within its pupil.

A moment later, and Vax was upon it. His hands thrashed wildly about in the smoke laden air for a dangerous second, for it was no easy feat to maintain his footing atop the shrieking monstrosity, which was a good deal larger than he’d initially estimated at a distance. But amidst the madness of motion, he was able to dig a boot into an innocuous groove of the berserker's armor, and steady himself, just long enough to divert his hands from the simple task of keeping himself upright, to well practiced murder. Or maybe it was self defense: by this point, he’d all but forgotten who had tried to kill the other one first, nor did he give a fig for the ethics of the life he had chosen for himself. 

Besides, the ethical argument on the narrow divide that separated adventuring from pillaging was quickly catapulted to the dustiest recesses of Vax’s mind, when he realised he’d forgotten one little detail.

The creature’s hide was thick, and it’s equally thick skull seemed quite willing to remain ignorant of pain.

True, the loss of an eye had topped its threshold for a battering, but as for a pair of blades sinking into the taut flesh, Vax would have been supremely fortunate to have them register as a shallow graze.

Unfortunately, the rouge’s luck had not been improving, for it seemed to have landed on a ‘severe irritant’, as the pink mountain of leather turned its remaining good eye to face him.

Then it responded, in the only fashion it knew how. Excessive, and unyielding, violence at the end of an armored gauntlet.

Bleary eyed with a contusion forming along the upper lip of his right eye, and a trail of blood streaming from his mouth, Vax was still trying to determine the direction in which he’d been hurled in when he felt his back give an audible protest at the treatment his foe had prescribed.

He was quite certain he’d broken at least two ribs, at least from the scraping sound that resonated deep from within his head rather than his ears as he pulled himself upright, in time to see the furious creature catch up, with a fist in tow. For a moment, Vax was quite perplexed as to how on earth it had managed to pinpoint him so quickly, before he recalled that the second blade had never left his hand, and the remaining golden iris was still glimmering in his direction.

The thought was still processing through the battered rouge’s head before it was violently knocked from the forefront of his memory by the brute’s fist. 

Groaning, Vax groggily picked himself back up, pressing his shoulder hard against the wall to support his effort, until his right hand felt a similarly unyielding construct. Too late, he realised he’d been backed, rather thrown, into a corner.

He could have almost sworn the ugly bastard was grinning at the prospect of gutting him alive, when a distinctive shard flickered through the smoke. A razor headed shard adorned by a feathered tail, that slammed headlong into the creature’s last eye.

Victory translated to desperation in the blink of an eye, or the removal of one, as the warrior crashed forward, arms flailing in a last ditch effort to catch his elusive tormentor in a vice grip. 

The Rouge did not move; not until the very last moment, at which point he dove forward; down beneath the outstretched fists, and rammed both blades through the adam’s apple of the titan. 

It’s own momentum carried it until the blades were buried up to their hilts, by which point, Vax was already gone, flickering out under its arm. Then, when the familiar weight of the two blades had returned to his waist, he lept forward, scaling up the carapace that lined the beast’s back, and pinned the daggers through the back of the horror’s skull.

At long last, the tension departed the creature, and it slumped forward to the ground, finally dead. 

‘Back in a jiffy,’ a familiar voice rang out, ‘you sure you didn’t get ‘jiffy’ confused with a coffin?’

Between his broken ribs; the swelling of his forehead, and the sudden outflow of adrenaline from his system at the onset of relief, Vax could not find a reply of sufficient wit that would dissuade his sister from killing him when they got out of their present mess.

In fact, the longer he thought about it, the longer he had to ask the question of why on earth she was only a shadow; a shade to his failing vision, without any distinct silhouette to distinguish herself from the encroaching fire. 

When they got out of here, he thought to himself, right before passing out, she really was going to kill him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: I know what I said last time; 'I'd have plenty of time to work on writing'. Writing, yes. Also getting my email hacked, frozen, and subsequently losing everything attached to it. Thankfully, I've still got a good number of offline copies, but things were set back for quite a while, and while thankfully Archive of Our Own is a nice and ergonomic system, Fanfiction.net has not been so considerate. So after loosing the associated email, I no longer technically own any of my stories over there. So it's been a bit of a hassle to reclaim things, and I hope you guys can forgive me on that. If you guys are still following this story from since it went out, thank you so much for your patience, and it not and you're new, please don't hesitate to leave a comment: feedback; positive, negative, neutral? Doesn't matter; every little bit helps to improve the story, and I will see you next time :)


	7. The Strength of Desperation

‘I’m gonna kill you after this, Vax,’ Vex cursed under her breath, ‘I’m really...gonna...;’

She tailed off, trying in vain to catch her breath. As the most silent of their number, it was a usual assumption to make that Vax’ildan was also the lightest, when one excluded the gnomes in their company. 

Of course, it was also the last consolation on Vex’s mind at the present moment, as she resumed her course; dragging her brother, and not at all in a gentle fashion, back downstairs to the relative safety offered on the lowest level of a building that was currently on fire. The dead weight of any body; bereft of any tension in its limbs to ease at least a portion of its mass, was a gruelling burden, particularly in the choking smoke which continued to sear her lungs. Which probably explained why Vex was not taking the precaution of keeping Vax’s head off the ground, and steps, as they descended.

‘Go running off, get yourself killed,’ she fumed, ‘nearly get us killed looking for you, and for…’

She spared a glance at the device in her palm, and it’s pathetic stature robbed her any words to elaborate upon her kin’s stupidity. Just as Geron had said, it was blinking away like a forgetful star in the sky, not quite being able to decide whether or not it was the evening on the planet down below, and she was tempted to simply toss it into the raging fire and be done with it. 

In fact, the only reason it had made it as far as it had on her person was thanks to the overwhelming guilt that stayed her hand; for the wrong she had done it’s custodian when she’d tripped over his person on the way out with her brother in tow. 

Slumped against the doorway as he had been, amidst the uncertain shadows, it had been remarkably easy to write him off as another corpse, when she’d felt something tug at the hem of her tunic. Something slick with blood.

In retrospect, it had made perfect sense for her to have drawn her brother’s blade and pinned it through the poor man’s skull. In the shifting dark, and with the gaping wound where his heart should have been, it was fairly easy for memory of the undead horrors of Whitestone to surge forth. 

And if all other justification failed, one could have always considered it a mercy killing.

But when Vex had noted the corpse’s outstretched hand to only contain the data capsule Geron had craved, she felt only disgust. Disgust for her own self, as she was forced to remove the guilty blade from the young man’s skull, and find that the only convenient means of penitence sitting in the hand that condemned him to death.

It was all that stopped her from hurling the damn case into the inferno that threatened to engulf her. And her idiot brother.

She had to move.

Pushing the capsule into the depths of a convenient pocket, and with it any memory of the hideous error, she resumed the unending descent, into the fiery pit that awaited them all.

* * *

 

‘Come on! Come on, you stupid piece of shit! Open up!’

There was more to Geron’s tirade, as he wrestled with what looked like a safe that had been embedded into the foot of the wall, but they were lost under the renewed barrage of lead that screamed to meet them for their defiance of the peacekeepers. 

‘Loading!’ another voice shouted; one of Geron’s acolytes, Percy figured, as spared a hurried glance at the doorway in the midst of tearing open a fresh sachet of gunpowder.

As one might have expected, holding onto a burning intersection right behind the open doorway to the outside world, facing men with fully automatic weapons and with over half their number injured to varying degrees, had proved a fruitless endeavor in no short order. Following Geron, though why they had remained beyond any of them, they had effectively bolted themselves inside a ‘safe room’, which was rapidly falling apart under relentless salvos of fire. One wall was already gone, with only furniture to provide a form of token concealment from its direction, whilst a second and third were singing their death throes, as the groan of weakening timber shuddered throughout the building. Meanwhile, the fourth might as well have been non-existent, as rounds were simply passing through the thin plywood like jelly. And although their adversaries on the far side of the bulwark were rendered effectively blind, they had the numbers to ensure that they hit at least something, as another yelp pierced the air, and other defender fell. 

Pike was upon him in an instant, and the cries of agony were quick to dwindle to a whimper that all but went unnoticed under the gun battle, but even with the Cleric’s administrations, it did not take the greatest strategic mind to discern the fact that the odds were not in their favor.

What was more, in the heat of taking on new armaments, Percy had forgotten one crucial little factor. Ammunition.

With the revolvers designed for more streamlined projectiles than musket balls, it had not taken Percy long to conclude that force feeding the pistols with his own munitions would only invite a misfire. Or cataclysmic detonation, if the pessimistic approach was warranted. But considering their run of luck thus far, the latter perception was becoming synonymous with the realistic.

The very fact they were not dead yet was a miracle in itself, although that might have had something to do with the fact Percy had switched back over to the monstrosity that was Big News. Slow as it was to fire, it was well calibrated, and hungry for life. What was more, it was loud as it went about it’s business, prompting friend and foe alike to duck low with it’s every belch of fire. Numerous as they were, ADVENT certainly were not stupid, and self preservation was an instinct that no amount of training could completely eradicate. Certainly, they, and Vox Machina, knew that a determined charge would undo the stubborn defenders entirely, for there was no way that the oversized rifle could be reloaded in time to deal with all of them, but so too did they know it would certainly obliterate whomever it touched. And no one wanted to chance that they would be that particular unfortunate.

Besides; ADVENT could afford a stalemate; they could wait, and simply pepper their foe to death. Logically, they would assume more casualties in doing so, but as long as the enemy was destroyed, what did it matter to the individual soldier? As long as he had a chance of making it through alive, he would take it over a suicidal rush. 

It was also helped by the fact that Percy was deliberately choosing to behead whomever wore the red cape that distinguished them as an officer, who knew a charge could wipe their enemy out in one swift blow. As they ran about, squawking and beating their men into position to attack, they made distinctive targets for the gunslinger. And with their removal, the will to charge evaporated once more, at least until another arrived on site, and the whole laborious process began anew.

Even so, it was an uphill battle, and as their numbers dwindled with each lucky shot; never quite putting a man out of his misery, but certainly doing enough to put him out of the fight, and take one another to treat them, it was no longer a question of whether they’d escape, but how long they could last.

Particularly since Geron was too hell bent on opening up a safe to actually help the firing line, though just as the thought creased Percy’s mind, he heard a muffled ‘sod it’, and a ring of metal from the commander’s position. Then, Geron was vaulting over the couch that had concealed him, tucking himself down just beside Percival, before bellowing ‘fire in the hole!’ at an absurd volume in the marksman’s ear.

Right before the area Geron had previously occupied exploded in a fury of shrapnel and fire.

‘Are you crazy?’ Percy demanded, not realising he had in fact screamed the query twice in quick succession, having failed to hear his first proclamation amidst the ringing of his ear drums, ‘You’re gonna blow us up!’

‘That’s our ticket out of here, boy,’ Geron sneered, stopping only to let a couple rounds loose in ADVENT’s direction, ‘Cullings; get your shits ready to move! Your rogue is taking his sweet friggin time, by the way.’

‘He’ll be back,’ Percy asserted, slamming the long rifle back onto the table they had repurposed as a buttress, ‘they’ll both be back.’

‘Well I sure fuckin’ hope. Hold down the corner; I’m gonna check on Cullings.’

The leader of the rebels disappeared shortly after that word, bellowing out all manner of abuse, and not necessarily in a grammatically correct order, as he went, leaving Percy to wonder just why on earth he’d decided to set off a bomb in their midst, when he saw the tunnel.

It would be a tight fit; that he was sure of. The safe door had concealed the passage, and although the actual floor of the tunnel seemed to be lower than the floor, providing a marginal degree of accommodation for a taller escapee, it would still be a brutal crawl to safety.

‘Come on, guys,’ he whispered to himself, rolling over to take aim once more, ‘hurry up, hurry up.’

A motion in the smoke; sparking a surge of hope, until he saw the red fabric.

The rifle shuddered, and the figure plunged downward, out of sight.

_ Hurry up! _

* * *

 

‘It’ll hold for now; just don’t do anything too...strenuous with it…’

Pike tailed off, surrendering the thought as soon as it had arisen. Telling a goliath to take any period of bed rest was as alien as it was dangerous. She could only hope he was not going to take off for ADVENT’s lines, since the volume of incoming fire was rising with each passing moment, and considering the fact it had taken the combined efforts of Percy, Vex and herself to move his prone form to the safe room, she did not want to stomach the thought of having to drag him back alone. 

Thankfully, Grog was still somewhat...groggy, after having lost so much blood, and he only vaguely nodded in response to her instruction, as he propted himself up against a wall, trying to collect his strength before the time came to enact whatever grand plan Geron had to get them out of his collapsing stronghold.

Something scuttled in the dark, and in an instant, Pike’s hand dropped to the morning star at her side. The clink of her armor must have given her assailant at least some indication of her presence beyond the makeshift barrier, for the noise abruptly ceased, nearly forgotten beneath the gunfight.

Nearly, as Pike swung the weight over the barrier, drawing a pitiful shriek from the far side as the spiked orb completed it’s deadly arch, and connected with a helmet designed to dampen gunfire. It was certainly not designed to stop sharpened medieval instruments; much less those with a tremendous weight behind them, and the trooper’s scream was cut off as quickly as it began.

Only to be replaced by another; one from her own side of the barricade.

‘Cullings is hit!’ someone cried; Pike searched for his name...Simms! That was it. The poor kid was as jumpy as he’d been when they first met him that evening, and the sight of his comrade bleeding out had literally disarmed him, as he threw the rifle to one side, rolling up into a fetal ball. Naturally, Geron was less than impressed, whilst Pike made her own way to the fallen man.

The round had passed through his shoulder; not quite the fatal blow Simms had impressed upon her with his initial reaction, but definitely a painful one, as she pulled him upright, keeping the wound above his heart whilst she steadied her mind.

‘You guys,’ the bleeding man choked, eyes not quite following her own as he drifted across multiple degrees of consciousness, ‘have really fucked my day up, you know?’

‘Well,’ Pike offered unhelpfully, ‘you’re not dead yet.’

‘I’d prefer to be. Please tell me you’re not one of those hippocratic-oath twits?’

‘What?’

‘Our last doc was a real pacifist; couldn’t stand him, ‘till he got his guts ripped out by a Muton. You’re not one of those who can’t touch a gun? Can’t fight back?’

‘What? No; who wouldn’t fight back?’

‘Everyone who lives in this city for one,’ Cullings spat, ‘but no; if you’re serious, then you promise me: if we aren’t gonna get out of this alive, you put me out of it. You hear? I’m not ending up in one of those prison camps. I’d do the same for you, but…’

‘Alright,’ Pike snapped, cutting off the dangerous thought before it could gestate any further, ‘you need to stop thinking about that, like, ten seconds ago.’

Her eyes fell upon the bleeding man’s rifle, and she plucked it from the ground. It was moistened with the touch of scarlet, but it was in no way as battered as it’s owner.

‘You said you didn’t like those who wouldn’t fight back?’

‘Not on my life.’

‘Then fucking fight!’

That seemed to do the trick, as Cullings seized the instrument with both hands, much as if a fire had just awakened at the furnace that drove his every motion. A fire of pride, and the  memory that would remain of his legacy when he fell.

Pike never quite understood the latter. It still remained to be seen whether any of them would live to record it.

* * *

 

‘Everybody just calm down; we mean you no harm…’

‘Scanlan! Shut up and start shooting! I don’t think they’re gonna pack it in after the amount of shit we’ve pulled!’

‘I’ve talked my way out of many an altercation, my good man,’ the gnome went on, giving a magnanimous little bow in the gunslinger’s direction, ‘let me just work my magic…’

‘Bedrooms are different from an army that’s shooting at us!’

‘Ah, you have no faith, Percival! You good sir! Wouldn’t you favor an outcome wherein we all get to go home tonight…’

A renewed salvo of lead from the trooper Scanlan had singled out as the ADVENT spokesman cut the little drama short.

‘I guess they’re all shits, aren’t they, Perc?’

‘So you’ll give me a hand?!’

‘Psh,’ the bard snorted, ‘you know me all too well.’

There was a distinctive shimmer of light through the chaos of smoke, before all manner of anarchy exploded across the ADVENT lines, as what could only be described as an ethereal hand approximately the size of a man rampaged through cover and men alike, either crushing the scattering men like insects within their own suits of armor, or simply batting the chittering troopers out from behind solid walls, right into the path of Geron’s and Percy’s sights.

‘For someone whose mouth is as big as it is, you’re not as useless as I figured at first; I’ll give you that.’

‘Thanks; I’ll try to take that as a compliment,’ Scanlan went on, slightly disappointed that Geron’s gaze did not remain on him long enough to sight the little magnanimous bow the gnome had given him in reply, but although he was a performer, the bard was still grounded enough to know that survival took precedence over the theatrical.

One of the armored plated peacekeepers; a swordsman who had evidently lost his rifle in the wake of Scanlan’s call of the ethereal hand, charged up to decapitate the stout figure, only for the gnome to sidestep the savage downward stroke. Then, with a crackling orb of power darkening his palm, Scanlan let the lightning bolt loose, right into the handle of the powered blade.

In theory, he had been hoping that the electrical charge would borrow a good portion of the voltage that had knocked Pike off her feet only minutes earlier, carrying it straight into the heart of it’s user, and frying him where he stood.

In practice, the batteries in the handle simply overloaded with the added charge, and combusted where they sat, ripping apart the weapon, and the arm of the courageous fool who’d been brave enough to carry it. 

High on the drug of adrenaline, the peacekeeper did not even seem to notice the wound, until his eyes fell upon the gnome once again, and he tried to swing once more, only to discover the absence of the aforementioned limb.

The simple shock that must have coursed through his addled mind simply paralysed him, as he simply stood stock still; head still cocked in surprise at the injury, when Geron rounded about and planted a trio of bullets into his chest, sending him toppling over for good.

‘Am I going to have to get your friends or what?’ He roared, ‘we need to friggin’ go!’

‘If it wouldn’t trouble you so much,’ a soft voice echoed in the gnome’s ear, ‘would you mind conking that idiot over the head before he brings the whole city down on you?’

‘Vex?’ Scanlan asked, suddenly seized by the very real concern that his comrades might somehow be in jeopardy, as if being surrounded by a hundred rifles did not translate to such, but an absence from his sight did, ‘Vex? Are you guys alright? And where the hell is Vax? He’s not…’

‘He’ll be fine, at least until he wakes up,’ the Ranger replied through the earing that adorned his ear, ‘The smoke’s good enough cover; we’re already past their lines, and I should be on you guys soon. Just don’t start shooting at the ground; I’ll be there soon!’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ the gnome smiled. 

Another shout resounded on the far side of the field. With the number of walls stray rounds had knocked to the ground, what was once a building might as well have consisted as a field. A patchwork of toppled rubble and corpses separating two bulwarks, from which one side advanced, and the other pushed back with equal vehemence. 

Peering into the dark, Scanlan could make out one of those red caped leaders; one who had escaped Percy’s judgement, until he realised Percy was in fact standing right next to him; only wielding the black powder revolver they had pried from Ripley’s dead hands. Evidently, Bad News had breathed its last reserves of lead for the day.

It did not matter, Scanlan decided, as another flicker of energy pulsed into his hand. 

They had resisted ADVENT so far. As would they again.

* * *

 

It felt like an eternity. 

She had started off at a crawl, dragging her brother in her wake after tethering a short rope to both their waists so that she might keep both hands free in the event a soldier happened upon their advance through the miniature no-man’s land that had formed over the course of the furious firefight. 

Twice, it had been necessary, as a soldier would literally stumble upon the two half elves amidst an attempt to either assault the dwindling position, or simply to find better shelter from the relentless threat posed by the rifle in Percy’s possession. 

Vax’s knives had proven eternally useful in the first encounter, although, much to Vex’s chagrin, they were also an insidiously unreliable means of warfare in anyone’s hands, save for Vax himself, since they had the rather inopportune memory of recalling the fact that he was still their master. And while that was a trait that had saved Vax many a time, as they blinked back to his side before a furious and bloodied foe could hurl it back in his direction, it was also a fact that nearly killed Vex when she had reached for the dagger she had planted in her bracer, only to find out it was back on Vax’s belt, whilst and ADVENT trooper was barreling down on her.

Tied to Vax as she was, she was still trying to contemplate whether or not luck was on their side, after a stray shot had taken the man in the head as he attempted to throttle her in the mud; his rifle having been mauled beyond repair by Scanlan’s hand.

But it was exhausting nonetheless as she dragged herself onward, praying with each passing moment that the smoke that choked her would not abate, and betray them to ADVENT’s guns. She could not see, much less breath, and the allure of sleep was growing more and tempting. It would be so easy; to surrender the back breaking labor of taking a breath in the smog, and simply close her eyes, but she resisted it, digging her hands forward into the broken stone, following the cacophonous blast she only knew could originate from the barrel of Bad News.

And when it ended, she followed the sound of scraping metal; the sound of a mace crumpling armored plate, before digging into soft flesh. She followed the crackle of lightning interceded by words that could draw blood. She followed the bestial roar of a berserker rending a man limb from limb. She followed the growl of a saber tooth defying death at a rifle’s end. 

And that was when her hand; fumbling blindly in the dark for some form of purchase to drag her the next step, landed upon the soft touch of fur.

* * *

 

‘He got her! He got her! Come on; give me a hand!’

Together; Percy and Grog tore aside the barricade, permitting the brown grizzly and it’s sorry burden back into the defensive ring. It had been quite beyond them as to what had possessed Trinket to charge through one of their makeshift barricades halfway through an assault, into oncoming fire, but with Vex out of sight, and more ADVENT pouring into their position, they had been forced to repair the breach, hoping beyond hope that the bear might somehow survive, and they would be spared the wrath of their Ranger. But now, his intent became clear.

Somewhat secure from the horrors beyond their collapsing perimeter, Trinket gently lowered his head, allowing Vex’s hand to drop from where she’d tugged onto his fur for support, whereupon he sat patiently to the side, awaiting for his old friend to stir.

Only, she remained still as a log, side by side with the brother she had braved the inferno to return.

‘Oh shit,’ mouthed Percy, ‘Pike?’

The only response was a grunt of exertion, as the Cleric finished caving in another bladesman head.

‘Pike!’

That got her attention, and in no short order, the air was filled with the light chime of individual plates scraping against one another, as the gnome covered the intervening space in with rapid strides, to drop down beside the fallen duo.

‘Aw, hell,’ she mouthed, planting an ear against the Ranger’s mouth, before confirming her worst suspicions, ‘she’s not breathing.’

A quick check revealed a similar affliction had struck her brother.

‘It’ll be the smoke,’ Geron sighed, gingerly making his way over to the cleric’s side so as to avoid an untimely decapitation under the hailstorm of lead, ‘damn carbon monoxide poisoning. Fucking, piss-poor way to go.’

Pike was not listening, as she began to hammer on Vax’s chest, intermittently checking the ranger for any sign of life. It was hardly the most effective way of resuscitation available to the Cleric, but frankly, she was exhausted; her capacity to will a wound to close having been utterly spent by the evening's events. 

‘Come on!’ She snapped, ‘Geron, can you try Vex?’

She sensed the drop of the man to the ranger’s side, but upon turning her head, she was amazed, and confounded, by the abrupt departure of all urgency in his form, as he slowly drifted a hand downward to still form, only to produce the blinking chip that had lain at her side.

‘It wasn’t for nothing,’ he said to the corpse.

Then, he numbly rose up, and returned to his post.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Pike nearly exploded, but try as she might to sustain the rage that surged to the forefront of her mind, she could not find the energy to maintain it. All that remained was a hope beyond hope that she could bring them back from the brink.

‘It’s the smoke,’ she cursed, tearing her gaze upward, searching desperately for any measure; any solution, before her eyes fell upon the crumpled druid in the corner of their warband.

* * *

 

There was a storm up above. Atop the ocean beneath which he slept; he could tell some entity or another had decided to exercise its strength upon the sea. Gale winds blasted the waves; the clap of thunder splitting the air, and between them, the scream of sailors as they witnessed their homes of oak and sail crumple, and slip beneath the waves.

And yet, it was all a distant thought. A passing thought; an bemused observation from the slumberer of the deep.

He liked it down here. It was not a bad place: a dreamless, shapeless bed, far and distant from the storm above. A shifting expanse that he could call his refuge.

Strange; the noise was getting closer; more distinct. What was once a dull thud had transformed to the clash of steel; not thunder.

It was then that Vax’ildan realised it was not the storm that was drawing nearer; it was he that was rising. Rising to the surface of consciousness like the breath of some creature of the deep, and with alarming speed.

Strange that he could not move; he could not find the strength to even articulate his curiosity, much less swim back down into the dark. He could only ascend, to break upon the surface, and return to hell.

There was certainly enough fire for it to be mistaken for such.

At first, he went to breath; a deep, gasp for air after being submerged for so long, only to find that his lungs were in fact at peak capacity. The gasp turned into a retch as soon as it began, although thankfully, a friendly hand was kind enough to turn him to the side, allowing him to empty his gut.

‘Vax?’

He put up an unsteady hand, begging for more time to compose himself as his eyes rebalanced. For a moment, he was tempted to simply lie back down, and close his eyes, to return to the sanctuary deep below, but the hand stopped him. 

‘Vax?’

It was the contact; the touch of a friend, that jolted him from the arms of death, and in that very moment, he remembered where he was.

‘Vex?’ He whipped around, only to come fact to face with Pike Trickfoot, despite the fact he was still seated firmly on the ground.

‘It’s alright, Vax; she got you.’

‘Where is she?’

Pike looked to be on the verge of answering, but it was at that point another wheeze split the air, spinning the Cleric about just in time to reveal their Ranger undergoing a rather similar treatment to the one Vax had just emerged from.

It was then that he realised the cloud; the dulling, dizzying smog that had welcomed him to the depths was gone. The inferno still raged, but the smoke was gone.

In its place stood Keyleth; an arm outstretched to the dark, and a gale wind extending in every direction about around her, battering away the choking smoke with the tenacity of a rock upon the oceanside; a bulwark against an unyielding tide.

The druid was not in a good way; that much was evident from the blood that still ran down her side from the wound she’d taken in the corridor, but there were fresh tears across her flesh; two of which nearly ran the length of her left arm, which hung loosely at her side in stark contrast to the iron grip of the other upon the elements. 

But she was still alive, and as Vax struggled to rise, the two exchanged an unspoken glance.  _ You aren’t getting yourself killed off that easily _ , Keyleth seemed to say.

_ Wouldn’t dream of it _ , answered the rouge silently.

‘Vax?’

‘Oh, sorry; what?’ To his immense embarrassment, Vax realised, somewhat belatedly, that the last few dozen words from their Cleric had in fact been addressed to his person. Thankfully, after tilting her own head to follow the direction of his own gaze, Pike did not press the issue, instead only giving him the slightest of grins. The genuine pleasure of witnessing happiness in two friends.

‘I was just asking if you feel alright; the procedure wasn’t exactly...orthodox, if you know what I mean.’

‘If that’s your question, then yep; right as rain. If you don’t mind me asking though…what exactly did you do while I was...down under?’

‘Well I didn’t do anything…’ The gnome shuffled uncomfortably. Pike was skilled in many things, but she was a certainly a terrible liar. ‘Well, I might have asked her to, well, you know. Do what air ashari do, if you know what I mean.’

‘I’m not at all sure if I like where this is going…’

‘You and Vex; you guys needed air. Let’s leave it at that.’

Memory returned of the expansive sensation in his chest, as if someone had just pumped a gallon of oxygen through his open mouth, and Vax gave Keyleth a second, more scrutinising glance. One that was not returned, as the druid tried, slightly too hard to be convincing for that matter, to retain her control on the barrier of smoke.

‘You guys force fed me oxygen?’

‘Seemed better than the alternative,’ Pike conceded, before she abruptly dropped the sheepishness in her voice, ‘but seriously, she did just save your life so...maybe say thanks later? Forgetting the...force fed bit.’

‘Don’t worry Pike - I know how to be a gentleman.’

‘I’m not sure if you lot are done screwing about back there,’ came a rather impatient voice, ‘but ADVENT looks like they’re done playing grab fanny. We ready to move or what?’

‘Move where? We’re surrounded, aren't’ we?’

‘Perc? Give Vex a tour?’

‘Oh, shit. And here I thought I was done crawling for the day.’

* * *

 

Thankfully, being a predominantly urban outfit, ADVENT soldiers were not typically accustomed to being charged by a tremendous grizzly bear looking for it’s friend. So when Trinket had made his nearly suicidal beeline into no-man’s land, it had also had the unintended effect of utterly scattering the forces that had been collecting for a final assault. Or maybe it had something to do with the fact that the officer leading the charge had gone ahead anyway with only five of the original twenty men at his disposal, only to be introduced straight to Grog Strongjaw and his weaponized rage. 

The terrified survivors had fallen back only to be thrown into further disarray by the sudden rush of smoke that enveloped their positions. With their lungs blackened and eyes stung in the hellish mist, any further attack had failed to materialise, prompting a good lull in the fighting, as the surviving officers struggled to reestablish chains of command amongst countless soldiers whose unit structures had been decapitated by accurate fire, and vicious blades.

At 2210 hours, as the wall of smoke began to disperse with the end of the strange magician’s power, ADVENT forces finally advanced once again, quietly creeping through the ruined innards of Geron’s stronghold to their original positions, scanning the barricades for any sign of their quarry. 

At 2220 hours, a reserve officer, who had arrived on site only after the white haired sharpshooter had exhausted his ammunition and thusly failed to bear witness to his penchant for his kind, decided against caution and led his outfit forward under the cover of nearly thirty additional guns. Two minutes later, an explosion killed his lead scout, dropping the squad to the ground as their compatriots blazed away at the ruin.

Five minutes later, the chance of glory finally outweighed the threat of another mine, and the advance team moved up again, until they were only several yards from the barricades. Several grenades later, and they had stormed the position without further casualties.

On the report, it stated that all enemy combatants had been killed in action, thanks to the decisive action spearheaded by officer No.8724496. It also recorded the necessity to revise ADVENT urban combat protocols, considering the ‘excessive’ usage of ordnance at the conclusion of the raid that not only killed every enemy combatant present, but in fact destroyed them beyond identification, leading to an inconclusive kill count stamped upon a ‘successful operation.

It never acknowledged the fact that that the remains taken from the bombed out barricades were often clad in armor matching the standard issue ballistic weave of ADVENT peacekeepers, nor did it ever note the strange empty safe built into a wall, that was missing a door, and was filled with only solid rock and stone.

* * *

 

‘That should hold them,’ Keyleth muttered, as she resumed crawling forward, through the dark. She did not want to consider the consequences of what would ensue if ADVENT discovered the tunnel behind the wall of stone she had thrown up to cover their escape. In such tight conditions, it would be practically impossible to escape, and the tunnel was one long straight line; a line that a bullet could follow with ease after a crawling victim.

It certainly did not help that she was the last in a long line of wounded, but then again, she was needed to block off the exit, particularly since no one was quite willing to see Geron or Percy set off another bomb in the close confines of the tunnel, particularly with them now inside it. 

At least she was not charged with carrying anyone, at least physically, she amended. Of course, fitting Grog and Trinket into the minute entryway would have proven an interesting logistical exercise, that would have probably transformed into a medical question of how many limbs he could survive without, had they no access to the polymorph spell. Subsequently, he was far up ahead, squeaking cheerfully as he took the opportunity to turn the tables on his friend Pike, who had a good deal more head room available than the average traveller, although she was still forced to crawl through the passage, with a little mouse atop her shoulder. 

Vex, of course, had not trusted Trinket to anyone but her own custody, and so the exercise became more akin to a mental one rather than a physical one. After hours of combat, spellcasting and shapeshifting, it was a struggle to maintain her focus on Trinket’s shape; a continuous battle to keep Vex’s friend compressed, even as the laws of nature battled her with each passing moment. 

Yet the cost of failure was too great to contemplate for too long. Though she’d never actually seen it occur, it did not take a lot of imagination to determine the damage that would be done if something were forced to expand well past unmoving boundaries that surrounded it. And then there was the small matter of Vex, who would undoubtedly be crushed by the renewed weight of her bear. 

If she somehow survived, Keyleth knew, she would never forgive the druid. Not for nearly killing the ranger that is, but rather the carnage she would have similarly visited upon her bear.

So they continued on; guided only by the odd shimmer of Pike’s guiding bolt, which was all too often obstructed by their companions in front, giving them no indication as to how long the trail they had assumed might take to traverse. Only the knowledge that it extended past the five feet they each could individually bear witness to, before any further observation was obstructed by the behind of the person ahead. 

Five bleeding men and women, alongside eight lost wanderers, clawing their way through the dark. Thirteen souls buried together, beneath the earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your support guys! And to say thanks, well, here's another chapter. I have no idea why I suddenly went on a spree, but here you go! Enjoy, and if you see anything that can be improved, please don't hesitate to let me know


	8. A Fragile Alliance

It felt like hours before the distinctive clank of metal came to a sudden halt, stifling their progress into the belly of the city.

‘Um,’ came Pike’s voice from up ahead, ‘Geron? You didn’t leave a door, here, did you?’

The collective groan in the air was unmistakable; with their run of luck thus far, it would have been no surprise to the adventurers of Vox Machina to find that there was not only an unforeseen obstruction in their path, but that it also housed a fire breathing dragon behind it’s frame.

Which was probably why half of their number nearly slammed their heads against the low ceiling upon hearing the low gurgle of a laugh that escaped the officer’s throat.

‘Course I installed a door; what? Did you think I’d be an idiot and leave a back way into my house for ADVENT to stumble down after?’

‘So would you care to open it?’

‘Sure, sure,’ the man hacked, before he made an audible effort to clear the collection of blood in his throat, ‘the password’s four-nine-zero-two.’

For the longest of moments, nothing happened.

‘Pike?’

‘Um,’ stumbled the Cleric, unable to rid the fear of whether or not Geron’s security systems would respond to her voice, ‘four-nine-zero-two?’

She prayed to Sarenrae that if the door was booby trapped, it would be a quick death at least. Bunched up as they were in the tunnel, there was practically no space for her to retreat from a potential trap.

Yet still, nothing happened. Behind her, Geron shuffled in frustration, though he was too occupied with another cough to repeat the phrase, so tentatively, Pike tried again.

‘Four-nine-zero-two,’ she enunciated, with greater conviction than she had the first time, yet still nothing occurred. No pit of stakes to swallow her up, nor a burst of fire to immolate flesh and bone. Just still silence.

‘For the love of God,’ Geron nearly exploded, ‘just hit the friggin’ buttons!’

To her eternal shame, it was only with Geron’s volatile reaction that Pike spotted the rusted panel. With its age, it was nearly indiscernible against the stone, but she could still make it out; twelve buttons, with a number from zero to nine stenciled upon ten of them, and a pair of strange symbols upon the other two; one of which might have been likened to a miniature grid, whilst the other seemed to consist of a rather crude representation of a star in the night’s sky.

Gingerly, she keyed in the numbers in the order Geron had provided, and with that, the construct gave way, sliding out to reveal a canal of stone immediately before her, and just beyond it’s opposing wall lay the erratic shadows of a forest.

‘We clear?’

Pike did not respond immediately, as she heaved herself out of the tunnel with overwhelming haste, before her hand was filled with the familiar silhouette of the Frostbrand Blade, even as she whipped about in the dark, searching for a potential threat. It might have been safer to simply poke her head out from under the cover of the tunnel, but so too would it have been a death trap if a patrol had lain directly above the exit; with her hands constrained by the confines of the tunnel, it might as well have doubled as an ersatz guillotine. 

And then there was the simple fact that, having been trapped underground for as long as they were, there was an unyielding instinct to simply embrace the breeze and the comfort to extend one’s limbs. Far less rational perhaps, and certainly burdened by a mountain of risk, but it refused to be repressed.

Thankfully, there was nobody in sight to exploit the exposed gnome, and as she dropped to the ground, now content in their relative security, she motioned for the rest of the band to emerge from their confinement. Now that she was no longer boxed in by the claustrophobic escape tunnel, she could view her surroundings with at least a fraction of clarity. The tunnel was in fact built into the very side of a road that lay only five or so meters above it’s exit, and although they were shielded to a degree by the gradient of the slope, the lights hurtling by was a good enough incentive for her to return to the wall’s side with the utmost speed. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but in truth, it had only been a couple of hours since they had nearly been run over by the cavalcade of steel carriages upon arriving in this strange new world, and their very proximity was enough to encourage caution to the traumatized.

At least they gave no indication that they had noted Vox Machina’s presence. So far, at least.

There was a distinct lash across the air as the space behind her contorted to fit around Grog’s reforming, titanic mass as Scanlan let the transmutation spell drop from the forefront of his mind, and in an instant, the Goliath was at her side; a broadaxe nearly equalling his own bulk dancing gently in his own arms, ready to strike down whomever so wished to bring them a battle anew.

But, like Pike before him, and to the Goliath’s own immense disappointment, only the birds seemed to challenge their presence, as they continued to chitter away in ignorant bliss at the dark.

‘Where are we?’ Pike asked, her eyes narrowing as she tried to ascertain some measure of the woods beyond the wide, yet intriguingly shallow canal. For some reason; likely to be memory of the innumerable times they had been traversing a poorly lit trail to be ambushed by a displacer, troll, or simply a pack of goblins who had severe difficulties telling a trade caravan apart from a company of trained killers; she could not quite bring herself to take her eyes off the shifting woods for any longer than a moment, as if it were a living combatant in itself; waiting for her to lower her guard before committing to the killing blow.

‘We’re just on the outskirts of the city,’ Geron sighed, before a sudden curse split his train of thought, and Pike turned about just in time to watch him tumble out of the little tunnel, and slide a good two meters across the concrete until she managed to arrest his fall.

‘Thanks,’ he groaned. A hand was clutched tightly to his side, where the bullet had ripped through his unprotected flank with contemptuous ease, and in the midst of the action, Pike could see there was still a distinct admission of blood from the wound, as it seeped onto and stained the soldier’s digits. ‘You people never seen a damn number pad before?’

‘Not exactly; move your hand.’

‘I told you, Pike; I’m fine.’

He pronounced her name much as if it were a curse, but Pike would not be dissuaded. Exchanging a glance with Grog, and satisfied he would alert them to any armed attempt to take their heads, he peeled Geron’s bloodied hand away from the wound. Surprisingly, although she felt tension in his grip as he attempted to fight her off, it was remarkably easy. 

The reason became apparent almost as soon as she’d felt it. His skin was discoloured with the hue of some insidious moss; his blood thickened and black to a nearly viscous degree.

‘Damn it, Geron; that’s poison!’

‘Must have been the Viper,’ he mused softly, ‘It’ll be alright; I already took the stims…’

‘It’s already festering Geron; we need to treat it.’

‘Well I could take another couple of shots,’ he snapped back impatiently, ‘but then, oh, I don’t know. I might start throwing up...go to sleep and never wave up...I took the damn stims, alright? I’m not going to overdose myself; I’m no idiot! It’ll work it’s way out in a couple of days…’

‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘I…’ he trailed off, in obvious pain. ‘I’ve lived through it in the past. Next few days are gonna be shit, but what the hell; I haven’t lost my immunity to the anti-venom yet, lady.’

He betrayed himself again with a second bloodied cough, to his eternal shame, though in truth, it made no difference. Pike would not be dissuaded.

‘Geron, can you just trust me?’

He gave the gnome a skeptical once over through the corner of his eye. 

‘Trust hasn’t gotten me very far.’

‘Then you probably never gave it long enough,’ Pike snapped sternly, ‘stay still.’

Despite himself, Geron clamped his mouth shut.

‘What’s a Viper anyway?’ asked Scanlan, hoping to change the subject away from the ongoing medical confrontation, ‘Like a naga or what?’

‘Those snake ladies,’ Simms put in, as if that in itself would explain everything. When Scanlan’s withering gaze met his own, he took the hint to elaborate. ‘Those...overgrown snakes with arms? And rifles?’

‘Wait, what?’ Percy had visibly jerked upright at that assertion. ‘They have rifles too now? Did everyone just lose their bloody minds and sign a pact with Orthax or what?’

‘No, peeps,’ went Geron, turning a baleful eye on the gunslinger, ‘they just figured out that plasma mutilates a face easier than a sword can. Seriously, have you lot been hiding under a rock-’

He was cut off by a sudden sharp pain in his side, and amidst the gasp, he was almost on the verge of balling a hand into a fist to give the Cleric her just deserts for playing medic, when he saw the dull glimmer of light from the gnome’s hand. Caught up as he was in his own loathing for their situation, and with his nerves dulled by the time that had passed since his injury, Geron had not even realised that Pike had placed an empty hand upon his torn flesh until the present moment. And as he watched, the skin continued to fold under no apparent force other than the Cleric’s, who sat upon folded legs; her eyes closed in quiet concentration. Folding; knitting and weaving itself back together with countless invisible threads, until the wound had closed up entirely; the blood and hellish toxins seemingly washed away by the same unseen force, and the only indication of the wound’s very existence being the sizable tear in his clothing that surrounded the injury. 

‘What in God’s good name are you people?’

* * *

 

To his credit, Geron listened to their story with far greater intent than any of them could have ever expected from an insufferably curt and demanding rebel. After realising it was not a tale but rather an entirely different world entire no one could possibly summarize a sentence, he had led them some distance into the woods, until they were far enough from the road for all of them to breathe a little more easy. 

That was not to say they were all breathing as easily as one another, since the paranoid man had nearly blown a fuse or two when Vax had produced a flint and a few pieces of dry wood, citing the necessity for ‘light discipline’. The drama lasted the grand total of half a minute, until Keyleth decided to demonstrated the benefits of casting a hallucinatory terrain spell directly upon their camp, turning the small clearing into a terrifically fat oak tree. The false trunk provided a reasonable, although perhaps not generous, degree of space for fourteen wanderers and a bear to take shelter within around a small fire pit, which was brought up to operation in short order by the taunting combination of fatigue and the cold that beset them in lieu of an opponent with a rifle.

After sharing out several dried rations, and a sip of ale to ease Geron’s quick temper, though only a sip, they began to tell their story.

Naturally, not all of them were up to the task, as Keyleth, Pike, Percy and Grog were practically upon their last legs by the day’s end. While the work of their Cleric might have prevented an untimely departure from the mortal realm, it still did not change the fact many of them had either spent themselves mentally, or taken a piece of lead traveling at high velocity. Most Geron’s own people had fared little better, and it was quickly decided that their own introductions would be left for the next morning with half of Vox Machina already sound asleep, and with their own minds clouding under the strain of exhaustion. Only Geron himself, and the youngest of his band; one of those they had saved in the alley, by the name of Simms, would hear the entirety of their tale. And Scanlan was all too eager to meet the audience, no matter it’s size.

On the other hand, it was still Scanlan they were talking about. That alone was enough to instill some duty in the half-elven twins to protect the truth, who by now had mostly recovered from their brush with the pink faced brute, and carbon monoxide poisoning. 

So they spoke: conversing; correcting lapses in memory, be they a casual slip or deliberate fabrication. But for the most part; they enjoyed themselves, as they allowed old memories to resurface. The countless laughs and victories. Even the bitter ones, for each was nevertheless a hurdle they had conquered together.

And Geron let them take their time, absorbing as much as he could of a world where the blade reigned over the rifle; where wizards truly could call fire and brimstone from the sky and so much more; where fantastic and dangerous creatures were hunted for a living. A world from which seven strangers claimed to have emerged from, and now conversed to him about it in carefree reflection, never needing to close him off to quickly clarify a facet of some grand deception, or perhaps more importantly, never needing to beg the need to light up a joint of psychedelics to retain the memory of ‘their world’.

By the time they had concluded their story, recalling their encounter with Anargyros and their abrupt deportation to the world in which they now found themselves in, nearly an hour had passed, and the trio shuffled about where they sat, now suddenly robbed of a direction; a course to take now that the one they had embarked upon for so long had finally come to a close.

Finally, it was Geron who broke the silence.

‘When you lot started,’ he began, prodding the dying embers of the fire with a blackened stick, ‘I gotta admit; I thought one of two things. That one; you guys were just plain high on some strong-as-shit magic mushrooms, or two; you guys were ADVENT’s worse attempt yet to get a spy into my cell. That they just said to themselves ‘hey, you know what? Let’s just give ‘em a cover story so outlandish; so chock full of BS, that they’ll have to believe them.’

‘And now?’ Scanlan asked in trepidation, much to Vex’s annoyance. Exhausted as he was, Geron still had a rifle, a pistol and a blade on his person, and unlike a couple of those he led, he had already shown he knew how to use them. Subsequently, inviting an execution for suspected espionage was the last item on her agenda.

Thankfully though, Vex was simply fearing the worst possible situation, which so rarely comes to pass. 

‘Now,’ Geron started, pausing to look each of them in the eye, ‘now I’m not so sure.’

‘So...you’re not going to kill us?’ Another groan from the Ranger.

‘Haven’t decided on that yet.’ came the reply. ‘But you lot fight too well to be high on some fungal crap, and I’d be lying if I said magic had nothing to do with it. Your short friend; the medic…and the redhead turning into a damn tiger…’

‘Sabertooth,’ Scanlan interjected.

‘...whatever. Hell; I’m inside a damn tree right now. You guys couldn’t make this shit up.’

He sat quietly, embracing the warmth that still arose from the dying fire. The night was getting colder. Or perhaps he was simply embracing the world he knew; holding on to some vestige of truth he had known until the band of otherworldly figures had arrived on his doorstep, and promptly turned everything upside down.

‘Aliens,’ he shuddered, sparing them another glance. ‘I’m talking to three bloody aliens.’

‘We come in peace?’ Offered the gnome, holding out his open hands to either side, before Vax finally gave him a light rap across the back of the head.

‘Look,’ the Rouge put in, ‘we’re only trying to find our way home, alright? It was never even our intent to come out here, much less...wreck your house…’

‘Ah don’t worry about that,’ Geron muttered, waving a hand in dismissal, ‘the damn thing was a pile of shit, and thanks to you two, we got all that really mattered in that pile of shit out of there before it caved in on itself. So ET’s trying to go home?’

‘Who’s ET?’ 

‘He’s...never mind,’ Geron sighed, and resumed poking the fire.

‘So, can you help us?’

‘Me? Help?’ The disbelief was palpable in the soldier’s voice, ‘look man; I appreciate that you saved me my boys but you’re here going on about some stuff right out of Tolkien's head or something of the sort. I ain’t a spell-casting-whatchamacallit! I don’t look at things and they go up or down to my liking!’

‘But do you know anyone who could help? A local wizard, a seer? Shaman? Anyone?’

Vex could already tell the answer to her own question the second it left her mouth, as the rebel’s eyes lowered from her gaze, unwilling to meet the judgement for disappointment.

‘I don’t know...you’re talking about portals and...teleportation, Jesus! I don’t think even the aliens could give you any better advice.’

‘What about Anargyros himself? Can you think of anyone who could help us find him? Maybe track him down?’

‘He ain’t dead yet?’

‘We didn’t see him die,’ Scanlan answered carefully, ‘but he is a Paladin, and experimenting with some pretty interesting alchemy. So it’d be a pretty fair guess to say he’s still alive.’

‘As long as he’s smarter than you lot and avoids kicking the hornet’s nest,’ Geron muttered beneath his breath, though it was just loud enough to reach their ears, ‘alright then; actually ‘finding’ people? That we could do. Well, when I say we, keep in mind that doesn’t mean ‘me’; it’s gonna be a walk.’

‘A walk where, exactly?’

‘Considering you ain’t a native around here, you wouldn’t know any better if I told it was a place called Satan's rear. All you need to know is that it’s about a five day hike out from here.’

‘I take it then that it’s the secret, underground resistance base nobody wants ADVENT to find?’

Geron had to give the gnome a second glance to ascertain just whether or not he was serious or simply pulling his paranoid leg. Given the fact the gnome could only give him a cheeky grin in answer, it left more than a couple of interpretations open to contemplation. 

‘Is he always like this?’ He had to ask. 

Vax only gave him a similar grin in reply.

‘Welcome to our lives.’

* * *

 

The next morning, they set off in a rough column into the wild. At least, most of their number set off in a column. With the twins naturally averse to any formation that might easily advertise them to a watching hunter, Vax and Vex had taken to positioning themselves an odd twenty or so meters ahead of the unit, sweeping for anything untoward that in lay in wait upon the path Geron had briefed them on at breakfast. Meanwhile, in the sky above, another shadowed their path in the shape of an eagle, on watch for any sign of a careless hunter combing the woods for the small band of fugitives responsible for the chaos of the previous evening. 

Naturally, it was rather comforting to those on the ground that there were three sets of sharpened eyes covering their every angle, and with the road ahead, there seemed to be little else to do other than to continually plant one foot ahead of the other. Of course, at the crack of dawn, it had been slightly different, as routine set about dictating their limbs in preparation for another day in a hostile world. Keyleth had relieved Vax of his late watch on the perimeter; Vex had taken to gathering and trimming down as many branches as she could find to replace the stocks of arrows she had expended the previous evening; Scanlan flexed his poetic prowess upon the ears of any bird that would pay him any heed; Percy nearly lobotomised himself with a rather unsuccessful attempt to fashion another of his unstable shrapnel bombs, and Pike had concluded her rounds as she checked the wounds of the previous evening, ensuring none would run the risk of an infection once they began to move. Aside from Vex chasing her brother around the clearing for a good minute after he’d proven incapable of keeping his boot on at at Pike’s arrival, much to the perplexed amusement of Geron, the morning was a quiet one. 

As was the day itself. Apart from one or two scares scares immediately after setting off, as the last in the area predators concluded their nocturnal hunts, the day was empty of the adrenaline that had filled the previous evening. Not that any of them were complaining that is, since it finally allowed for the chance for the inquisitive in their number to finally ascertain some answers upon the world they now inhabited.

‘It’s Simms,’ Scanlan asked, ‘isn’t it?’

The young man ahead of him had begun to turn about, an answer already forming in his mouth, when his pupils abruptly dilated at the absence of anyone behind him.

‘Down here.’

‘Oh! Right, sorry about that,’ he flustered, ‘I’m still trying to get used to...you know...you and...eh…’

‘Pike?’

‘Yeah, and your...bigger friend.’

‘What’re you lookin’ at?’ Grog snorted violently, promptly spinning the man back around to the trail ahead of him, before the Goliath could decide to rearrange his head. That was at least until Grog was unable to stifle a laugh, leaving Simms quite confused as to whether or not he was still in any imminent danger of a ‘man’ nearly twice his height, who was still swinging a small tankard of ale in one beefy hand, and a battleaxe in the other.

‘Alright, Grog,’ Pike put in, ‘give the kid a break.’

‘Kid?’ Simms started indignantly. Coming from a gnome that barely reached his waist, the injury was too much for him to clamp his mouth shut before the first word had escaped into the public air. But to his eternal surprise, the titan seemed to forgive his momentary trespass, offering the barest of conciliatory shrugs before returning to his ale. And even if Pike had noted his impulsive rebuttal of the term she’d provided him, she gave no indication that she had, instead joining in beside the Bard in a question on the world they now occupied.

In truth, if the statement had come from practically anyone but a gnome, Simms would have probably sucked the comment up without a second thought. Considering that he’d yet to even beg the need to shave over the course of his short life, he was certainly the youngest of Geron’s surviving band of misfits. Subsequently, as they’d found over the course of that morning, he was also their dogsbody. Cleaning the mess tins?  _ Simms!  _ seemed to fill the air. When the fire seemed to run low, a similar call went out for fresh wood, and not a moment went by that they did not see him flustering off to meet some other menial task, be it relaying a message to their present sentry, or simply stowing a stray kit away for the day’s march.

Not that the others seemed much more useful than the thirteen year old. There was a rather built man by the name of Hawkins, with a head of shortly cropped hair, and no small number of tattoos inked into his flesh, but his behavior sorely failed to coincide with his appearance, as he routinely attempted to practice taking a firing stance with mixed results, even as Geron did his best to correct his errors with the least embarrassment. A quick conversation had revealed him to have once taken the occupation of a sportsman, which went a little ways as to explaining why Geron had entrusted him with a bandolier of grenades similar to those he’d employed during their escape the previous evening, but there were well founded doubts as to whether he could handle a rifle much better than Simms could. At least he was bearable; a tinge competitive with a lot to prove, but not so much that he could find himself averse to the thought of joining the company of professionals.

He was certainly a lot more friendly than the woman that followed him in the approximate line, who had introduced herself as Jenna, and that was about that. From what they had learnt from Geron at least, she was once one of the cell’s ‘techs’, at least, back when the unit actually had a number of computers to operate and maintain. Now, she was but another rifle; her hands still in the process of adjusting to the unfamiliar touch of steel. And she was a long way from adjusting to the company she now found herself in, especially considering the fact she’d just watched every one of her colleagues in the technical unit bite a bullet or plasma bolt the previous evening, before Cullings and Simms had made their own, unsuccessful attempt to retrieve Geron’s hard drive. Instead, they had found her, and the bestial ape responsible for their deaths. For the creature’s death, she had expressed a degree of thanks to the half-elven twins, but even in her words, there remained a quiet resentment. Perhaps of the unknown element they all posed, or more terrifying to Vex’ahlia, the possibility she knew of her crime. It was an unrealistic proposal that she somehow knew that the Ranger had killed Hemming in a blind reaction, but as long as it rested on Vex’s conscience, the sin would manifest wherever the imagination deemed fit. It was one of the reasons she had chosen to forge ahead, as if simple distance might remove the scrutinising judgement of the wronged. 

And then there was Cullings, who might have offered the only actual means of security to the savaged band of fugitives if both Geron and Vox Machina had failed to materialise. That was not say it would be a superb form of security, but aside from Feron, he was the longest standing member of the surviving brigade. And subsequently, he was also the least likely to shoot himself in place of their pursuers. 

Which left Geron himself. Someone who nobody was all too willing to talk that much about, particularly in his immediate presence. 

Nobody, except for Simms, who seemed to have yet to grasp the concept of ‘stranger danger’ in a guerilla war. As far as he could ascertain, Vox Machina had the blood of ADVENT soldiers on their blades, which immediately translated to the fact that they could be trusted with nearly every secret in the book. Something that the present members of the party was all too willing to exploit, particularly after so many hours in the dark. Besides, Geron was somewhere behind, taking a leak on an unfortunate shrub, and Keyleth; their moral compass, was gliding through the clouds far out of earshot.

‘I don’t actually know that much about him,’ he admitted, at least at first, ‘all I know is that he served in the Invasion. 5th Marines, I think. They were at the Battle of Bakersfield and Phoenix, but I couldn’t actually tell you whether Gerron joined up before it all went to shit, or only after the Invasion started.’

‘Invasion?’ Scanlan prompted, urging him on, ‘you mean when ADVENT arrived?’

‘Yeah, well, actually; not exactly.’ He paused, collecting his thoughts; collating the second hand accounts from family, friends, and careless whispers that constituted his memory of a time he had not lived to see, but one that had shaped their world. ‘I mean when the aliens first came; ADVENT only emerged later, after they needed a friendly face to keep control of what they’d taken. But they’re still here; just in the shadows, tugging on the strings.’

His usage of ‘aliens’ raised more than a few eyebrows amongst the members of Vox Machina that were present, but it was not for the reasons that immediately leapt to his mind. In Tal’Dorei, where new and fearsome entities ripped their way into reality on a daily basis, and adventurers discovered more and more to fill the official bestiaries deep within Emon’s libraries every year, the word itself had come to lose it’s meaning. Where the accepted reality was ever changing, who could ever set the boundaries that defined normalcy?

It was probably why, when he’d first encountered it, Vax had not even stopped to consider as to why a mutated humanoid was capable of wielding a rifle. Rather, the only questions that had been asked was of its intent, and physiology; it’s strengths, and vulnerabilities. Aside from those queries, it was simply another day on the long road. 

And they were the exact same questions that sprung to the minds of his compatriots in the present moment.

‘Have you ever...seen one?’

Percy had meant the question as a cure for his own curiosity, but it was certainly taken as something else entirely, for as soon as it reached the young man’s ears, he seemed to puff up like an adder. A little, half formed adder fresh from a clutch of eggs, but an adder nevertheless.

‘What’re you saying?’ He spat with surprising venom, ‘Of course I’ve seen them! I...I’m sorry.’

He seemed to shrink as quickly as the anger had arisen. Maybe it had something to do with the Goliath poking his head over Percy’s shoulder to determine what the problem was, but after years of taking on contracts filled with fine print, and dodging the odd racketeering scam at the local tavern, the skill of deciphering another’s position could never be underestimated in a cutthroat trade such as their own. And although their keener eyes were occupied elsewhere, Simms was an easy read. Someone who had been struck hard across the face by the hand of oppression, but unlike Geron and Cullings, it was evident he was still feeling the sharp agony of the blow coursing across his flesh. 

Apparently, he’d yet to suffer the second, and third, and fourth blow, until the battering became second nature; another acceptance on the path of life one chose to walk.

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Percy amended quickly; ever the negotiator, ‘I wasn’t questioning your capability in the field; I was just asking if you could...help us in identifying them. We’re still rather new to this whole thing, if you understand what I’m saying.’

A cautious gaze from the edge of the young man’s eyes was the only response he received. There was still a strange energy there, as if he wanted to share all he knew, and yet; an irrepressible fear that they would see through his puppy-like eagerness. It was a well founded fear.

‘If you’d rather not speak about it, I’d understand.’

‘No, no, no,’ he quickly spluttered, trying recompose himself, ‘I’m sorry about that, it’s just...people tend to think I’m...too young to handle myself.’

_ We can certainly tell _ , Percy was nearly tempted to say, but he kept his tongue. Scanlan on the other hand, could not. 

It was no surprise that the comment was an unwelcome one, as he seemed to shrink back into himself.

‘Look kid,’ Percy started, before he mentally hit himself; _Why did he call him a kid?_ _Aside from the obvious reasons._ ‘You want to help around right? Then help us get some bearing about what we’re up against here; we’ve only been around for a day or so; less than that actually! Is there anything you can give us?’

His eyes flickered to and fro, as if they were all in on some cruel joke to build him up before tearing the rug out from underneath him in a raucous thunder of laughter. There was certainly a history there, but it would not reveal itself to any better detail, as eagerness triumphed over caution.

‘Well, what do want to know?’

‘Well, what do they look like, for starters at least?’ Pike began.

‘I thought you guys…’ he trailed off uncertainly, before resuming anew, ‘I thought you guys already killed that Muton upstairs? Or was I just hit that hard in the head?’

‘No,’ Scanlan put in helpfully, ‘no, you’re probably thinking of Vax and Vex; they’re the ones that fought the ogre.’

‘Vax and Vex?’ He looked suitably clueless.

‘The ones scouting up ahead? Vax; the one with a bow, and Vex; the one with I-don’t-know how many daggers on him?’

‘Scanlan…’ Pike started with a warning tone in her voice, but the gnome ignored it, only giving her the slightest of mischievous winks as the confusion cleared away in Simm’s face. For now at least.

‘Ah! Right, yeah. Sorry, I forgot about that. Yeah, that was one of them.’

‘An alien?’

‘Well, a Muton, specifically. They’re pretty much the bruisers, but you don’t see them very often. And if I’m being honest, most people that go up against them don’t walk away alive.’

‘Have you ever seen one?’ Percy asked, without a hint of a challenge in his voice as the detective in him took over.

‘Twice, and I stopped at the ‘seeing’ bit. First time was during my second raid; saw it from the air duct, but that was about it…’

‘What were you doing in an air duct?’ The youth seemed to shrug as if it explained everything.

‘Planting a pipe bomb; we were trying to hit the power network, and well, I was the only one who could fit through.’

For someone dead set upon proving himself, he was quite surprised by the glances they gave him. Tal’Dorei’s battlefields might not have been the prettiest of affairs, but their atrocities tended to stop before the employment of child soldiers. 

‘I didn’t actually, fight it, if that’s what you’re asking,’ the youth clarified indignantly, as if he somehow , ‘Cullings and the others got the job of distracting it. I? I just bombed the transformer and ran.’

‘But you were…’

‘They didn’t trust me with a rifle,’ he added quietly. There was an unmistakable hint in his tone that he did not want discuss his ‘diminutive’ role in that particularly incident much further, and they took a hint. ‘Besides, in retrospect, I’m kinda glad it wasn’t me. Helen and James; they didn’t make it back that day. Like I said, most people don’t make it back alive.’

‘Ah, don’t you worry, kid,’ said Scanlan, rapping a closed hand against the youth’s leg as overtook him on the trail, ‘we’ll look after you. All of you; we’re professionals at this sort of thing.’

‘We’re rather...experienced in the art of killing weird shit,’ added the Goliath, ‘if you know what I mean.’

This time, Simms seemed to think better than to challenge the gnome’s flippant regard for his age. It had come from the intent to reassure, rather than condescend, and for that, he was grateful. And then there was still the presence of the Goliath at his side.

‘So what else should we be keeping an eye out for?’

‘Well, there’s ADVENT themselves…’

‘Let me just clarify; what is actually  _ dangerous, _ and we should keep an eye out for?’

‘...then there’ll be Vipers. Did you see the one back at the safehouse?’

A series of blank glances met him.

‘I guess it ran; big, big snake with arms. And they move fast as the Devil himself.’

‘How do you actually kill the little shit?’

‘Take it by surprise?’ Grog looked suitably disappointed with that answer. ‘Look, I’m not an expert on how to take these thing out; in fact, I’m probably the last one you should be asking!’

‘But you’re the only one who agreed to be asked.’

‘About the old man, not hunting these things!’

‘And I’m sure he’d appreciate you calling him an old man,’ came Cullings’ voice from a few yards ahead, as he tracked around; continuing to walk along their course in reverse while he faced them. ‘You want to kill a Viper? Simms probably just gave you the only logical piece of advice. Once the bastards know you’re there, it’s a nightmare to land a decent shot before they throttle you.’

‘There’s certainly worse ways to die,’ Percy answered.

‘Well then let me rephrase that; constriction until your bones splinter and puncture your internal organs. And that’s if they don’t just vomit up that green crap in their throats into your gob.’

‘Poison?’ A nod. ‘Please tell me it’s not acid again?’

‘I thought it was,’ Cullings admitted to the Cleric who had posed the question, ‘but after what happened to Abrams, I can’t be too sure. I’m not a scientist, but acid burns. Their corpses are still pretty much intact, so maybe a neurotoxin? Either that or something that will just screw you up inside. Whichever way, I can’t recommend it.’

‘Is there anything else?’

Cullings looked like he was on the verge of answering the Bard, but it was at that point his decision to walk backwards returned to haunt him. As much as it might have given the appearance of a man entirely in control, any memory of that quickly vanished when he disappeared into the grass, mouthing more than a few curses under his breath as he picked himself up. And while his companions might have thought it better to avoid any sign of amusement, the same did not apply to Vox Machina. 

‘Tip for a longer life expectancy,’ he announced through gritted teeth, although most of it was lost in Grog’s raucous laughter, ‘look where the hell you’re going.’

‘You were…’ Scanlan started, before he had to stifle a snigger, and was forced to begin anew, ‘you were saying something?’

‘There’s also Sectoids,’ Cullings resumed, rather loudly in a desperate hope to drown out the Goliath, ‘but as long as you aren’t worried about ending up in an asylum, I really wouldn’t be too concerned about them.’

‘Wait, running the risk of insanity doesn’t constitute as ‘dangerous’?’ Pike demanded.

Cullings only gave her shrug.

‘Compared to some of the other stuff they could do to you, I’d stick with a sleepless nights. Although I hear the Elders are a hell of a lot worse.’

‘Elders?’

‘Now I’m the one who’d be talking out of my ass if I gave you a lesson on those freaks,’ Cullings asserted, this time only talking over his shoulder for shortened periods at a time, before switching his attention back to the path, ‘frankly? I’ve never met one, nor has anyone here. Hell, I don’t think even Geron met one, but from what I hear, they were right nasty pieces of work during the invasion. And you know what? Since then, they’ve never sighted again. And I have no wish to see them for that matter, thank you very fucking much!’

On that last note, he had tilted his head skyward, spouting the curse up to the heavens above, as if the hand of fate cared for the wishes of one mortal it could break in the instant it so chose. Even so, Cullings was not deterred. At least, he was undeterred up until an angry bark from behind them all cut the air like a lance.

‘If you don’t want to see them, shut your bleeding mouth before you bring the garrison down on our heads!’

‘Did you enjoy your...evacuation, Geron?’

Percy cradled his head a hand as the unit’s commander flung a furious glance in Scanlan’s direction. Diplomacy, or rather tact, simply existed in another plane of reality from Scanlan’s mental programming. 

Thankfully though, Geron seemed unable to find a suitable comeback for the gnome’s blatant disregard for his rank. Or maybe he had enough tact to put up with the continuous snips in exchange for an alliance of convenience. Or; most likely in Percy’s assessment; he was pragmatic enough to realise his battered squad was in no shape to pick a fight with the only people that were not actively attempting to murder him at the present moment. Aside from a derisive snarl, and an immeasurably withering gaze, he strode past them, to retake his place at the head of his irregulars.

‘So,’ Percy sighed, hoping to put the little episode behind them all, ‘Mutons, Vipers, Sectoids and Elders. Is there anything else you missed?’

There was a moment of silent exchange in the eyes of the pair, who up until now had been remarkably talkative considering their audience was a band of people who gladly identified themselves as aliens to the world beneath their feet. 

‘Simms,’ Cullings started abruptly, shattering the collusive moment only seconds after it had begun, ‘Can you actually get a sitrep? Just double check with the boss; pin down exactly where we are, and when we’re stopping? I swear, wherever we go, I somehow always end up with a damn hitchhiker in my boot.’

He shook out his right foot to punctuate the statement; perhaps too obviously. But it was enough for Simms, who immediately took off after their grumbling officer at a gentle jog, leaving him alone with four perplexed members of the party.

‘Sorry ‘bout that,’ he sighed, immediately straightening up once Simms was beyond earshot, ‘he might not go batshit loony when I talk about them, but, well, I can tell you he doesn’t like it, so I try to keep him out of it when I can.’

‘Who’s ‘them’?’ Percy asked, a little more forcefully than he’d intended, but the little drama of deception had stirred his interest.

‘There’s also, um... Chryssalids.’

He said it as if the very word explained it all in no small amount of detail, until the blank looks reminded him of who he was speaking to.

‘Um,’ he stammered, trying to recollect the details he had thought would be self evident in his explanation, ‘they’re like insects. Big, two meter tall insects. Four...or was it six? I don’t know; a lot of legs, ok? More than what classifies as  _ normal _ .

‘What exactly makes them so bad?’ 

‘Razor sharp limbs, and a bite that’ll make you wish it stopped at death. Like I said; I’m no scientist, but what I do know is that people who end up getting chomped by them don’t tend to stay in the ground for very long.’

‘What?’ Scanlan asked, unfazed, ‘like a thrall? A zombie?’

‘An incubator is closer to what I’ve seen,’ Cullings went on, taken aback somewhat by their casual acceptance of the most terrifying foe he’d ever laid his eyes upon under the alien occupation, ‘they lay an egg or something in their prey with the bite; after a couple of minutes; guy will literally tear himself apart, and I kid you not; there’ll be another one there, ready to go.’

‘I take it you’ve fought these things before, haven’t you?’

‘Only once, and that was...what? Three? Four years ago? It was when I first met Simms; yeah, four years ago then.’

‘He doesn’t look like he enjoys talking about these things a lot,’ the Bard noted, slipping a glance down the line to where the youth continued to pester his officer, to the latter’s eternal annoyance, ‘I take it something happened?’

‘His mother got it. Don’t know what happened to the father; kid never talked about it, but as for his mother; yeah, I saw what she turned into. For a couple of minutes anyway, before whatever was inside her clawed it’s way out.’

There was an empty glaze over Cullings’ eyes, and whilst it would have been a severe overstatement to say he had turned pale at the memory, there was still a noticeable loss of colour in his cheeks, as he allowed the scene to play back across vacant eyes. Until he recalled he was subject to the scrutiny of four listeners.

‘Look, just do him a favor, alright? Don’t go asking him too much about that, ok? If you want to talk about the bastards, talk to either me or Gerron, but leave the kid out of it, alright?’

‘Course we can,’ Percy answered, ‘but if I may; is that why he’s here now?’

‘What gave it away? Lack of a beard? Yeah he’s pissed. And he’s also as likely to shit himself as he is to shoot one of us doing so. But…’ he gave a defeated shrug, as he gazed up to the sky once again. ‘He didn’t have anywhere to go after ADVENT torched the farm. And set those things loose. And Geron; Geron wouldn’t pass up another body. Another damn rifle. If it were me; I’d keep the kid back from the line, but hey; I don’t run the outfit. Nor could I get him to simmer down, at least when he stops shitting himself.’

‘I wouldn’t disagree,’ the gunslinger sighed, as he glanced down to the pistol adhered to his waist, and every horror that had marred it’s memory, ‘vengeance is a...it’s a dangerous path.’

As Cullings turned about, Percy had half expected him to burst into question about his own road into darkness. But as it turned out, Cullings was not as inquisitive as he was perceptive, as he observed the near weariness in Percy’s form, alongside the unease with which his gloved hand fiddled unconsciously with the strap that kept the firearm where it lay, and he thought better of making a formal inquiry. At least for the present time.

‘So,’ Grog started, pulling them back to the focus of their lesson in xenobiology, ‘we can ask  _ you _ about these, um, whatchamacallits?’

‘Chryssalids.’

‘Yeah; so the all-important question; how do we kill the little shits?’

Cullings regarded him as if he were mad.

‘You don’t. You just run, and pray they don’t pick you. I don’t think even Geron’s killed one.’

A deep, throaty rumble was all that emerged from the goliath and at first, Cullings feared he had offended the giant, and had only seconds to formulate his last words on planet earth as the battleaxe circled through the air. Then, and only then, did he realise it was in fact a chuckle. A chuckle of a born killer.

‘I think we’ve got just ourselves a challenge, fellas.’ 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To XCOM nuts; I apologise if this session in xenobiology seems redundant, particuarly to anyone whose already had the tar beaten out them by the said aliens. Keep in mind the story is still written from the perspective of Vox Machina, and whilst it is set in the world of XCOM, they have yet to actually encounter any of the said creatures. Now at least, we should be able to avoid playing the synonym game when Vox Machina encounters a Muton, like the last chapter. Thanks to MrSaineIndeed for pointing out the need to trim down the tedious writing of previous chapters; I'm still editing the old drafts, but please let me know if the style of this chapter is more readable. We are intrinsically bias toward our own work, and though I might try, I will never be to completely fully plant myself in the shoes of the reader, so if I've failed to hit the mark, please let me know so I don't trundle onward, ignorant of the issue. Please do not hesitate to give feedback; it can only benefit us all!


	9. The Trouble With Elves

‘I know what you’re thinking.’

‘Is that so?’

‘I believe so, and if it is so, so too could the results be so very terrible.’

There was a gentle click of metal as Geron flipped the binoculars back into their casing, and cast a deadly eye to the man who tormented him so.

‘Say that five times, and I might consider it.’

‘You know sir,’ Cullings answered with a wry grin, ‘I’m not so sure if I could.’

‘So shut up.’

It was nearing midday, on their third day since fleeing the safehouse of District 42, and since then, practically nothing worthy of mention had come to pass. Maybe it was thanks to the eyes of their three scouts marking down practically anything and everything that might have raised a paw defiance of their passage. Or maybe, and most probably, it was Geron’s unceasing paranoia that insisted an immediate change in course the second Keyleth spotted a bird stretch its wings. Even when those scares revealed themselves to be a careless bird or something of a similar diminutive size, Geron was insistent; that it might have been fleeing from a patrol further up ahead, or some other far fetched theory that bordered on the obscene.

It was also driving them all insane.

Percy’s attempts to knock some sense into Geron were often only met with more ramblings, and Pike had all but given up on trying to soothe the mind beneath that shaggy mop of hair. On a good day, she was met with an annoyed grunt, before Geron would shamble off, in the opposite direction . Usually, it was far worse. Just the previous day, he’d nearly twisted her arm out of her socket when she had decided to approach him from his back as he sat on a log. With the lack of any vegetation in their select clearing, Pike’s approach had been far quieter than even she had intended, and having grown accustomed to the rather telling clank of plate armor, Geron was somewhat surprised at her sudden appearance. In fact, he was so surprised that he decided to throw an elbow over his shoulder in response, bloodying the cleric’s nose before attempting to drag her over his shoulder. Unfortunately for him, he had not quite realised his ‘assailant’ was in fact wearing heavy plate armor. Not that it helped Pike a great deal, as it did not change the fact that the poor gnome’s arm was being exposed to a sudden force in a direction it was not designed to accommodate.

The result was one twisted shoulder, and a nearly dislocated one, if one excluded the broken nose. Not that it ever stopped proving hilarious to Scanlan and Grog, as they watched a slightly bemused Pike tending to the seething human, who could find nobody to shoulder the blame, save for himself.

Then again, there never quite was a situation when the pair could find nothing to laugh at.

And at the front of the column, annoyance had nearly turned into murderous consideration. Having to sweep an area clear of threats was already a distasteful task for the twins on the ground. But then having to sweep an entirely new area simply because they had found ‘something’ in their previous sector?

At first, it was refreshing to get some appreciation for knowing which branch could not have been broken by a heavy storm. But after making nearly no progress towards their goal over three whole days, it was becoming a draining burden.

One that might have ended in a slit throat, if the trio of scouts had not simply reached the consensus that they did not have to leave everything in the hourly reports.

There was no doubt that Geron would have probably blown a fuse if he’d found they’d been keeping squirrel movements away from him, but then again, he was not blessed with the eyes and wings of the half elves. When a deer came within a mere thirty meters of their campsite on the first evening they had actually made some progress on the road. , Vax had sworn their game was at an end. But Geron had never even registered its presence, even as his eyes wandered over the little clearing where it had taken to graze, and it was becoming clear that the man was no tracker. Instead, he seemed to specialise in going after targets someone else had already identified. Or rather, he seemed to specialise in running away from said targets.

Which was why his sudden interest in the hamlet Keyleth had spotted deep into the woods was good cause for concern; even suspicion, for the members of Vox Machina.

And naturally, Geron expended absolutely no effort in trying to understand why they could be suspicious. Instead, brute arrogance would do well enough.

‘It’s a town,’ he answered Vex’s question, in a rather impatient tone that invited no further questions, ‘and towns have supplies.’

‘You’d trust a town, but not the wildlife?’

The baleful gaze turned to the Ranger’s twin. As far as traveling companions went, Vax decided, they could and had done far better than the man before them.

‘It’s a resistance town,’ he snapped, as if that answered everything to seven people who might as well have been born three days prior.

‘Oh come on,’ Percy replied, ‘you can’t really believe everyone down there’s going to welcome you with open arms; every place is going to have at least one person who’ll support ADVENT.’

‘They’re out here, rather than in the city,’ Cullings put in, wiping a muddied hand against the hem of his fatigues as he drew up beside the small gathering, ‘anyone who decided against ADVENT’s ‘New World’ program will have already made up their minds over the administration.’

‘New world program?’ Several blank looks met the statement, although unlike Geron, sharing common knowledge seemed to be rather tireless for Cullings.

‘ADVENT’s propaganda promise to get people to see them as saviors after they’d torched their homes during the Contact War. Basically, offered people the chance to move into the cities free of charge, with practically free advanced medical facilities, food, work and educational to boot.’

Pike was unable to suppress a low whistle at that. ‘They could afford all that?’

‘I know,’ Cullings sighed, ‘but then again, half the cities are built out of that alloyed plate they brought with them. Wouldn’t be surprised if they just used what they had stocked up, you know? Least that way, they didn’t have to buy from us. Practically destroyed the old world market overnight; no one can compete with free...well, free everything.’

‘Great economics class,’ an impatient Geron snapped, ‘the point is; these people got that promise, and still gave ADVENT the middle finger. Only reason any of them did that is either they were too suspicious, too smart to know none of that shit came free, or they just hated ADVENT, period.’

‘Wait a second; that was three reasons, not one, right?’

For that split second, more than a few of Vox Machina could already see Geron blasting a decent hole in their druid’s head, even as Keyleth tried to discern where the renewed bout of hostility had come from. In fact, the temptation was quite visible, as the man’s hand twitched about his holster, and Vax found himself a good deal closer to Geron than only a minute before, even as his own hand snaked its way to one of many sharpened instruments on his belt. Yet nothing transpired. Slowly, the tension faded, as the soldier emitted a forceful breath and dragged his arm with visible effort away from his sidearm, before tucking it beneath his other limb so that they folded over one another, preventing any instinctive action.

After all, he needed them far more than they needed him.

‘Yes,’ he huffed, forcing an even tone to his voice, ‘yes, that’s three, elf.’

‘Look,’ said Pike, trying to place herself between the two parties, only to find that with her diminutive height, any efforts at violence would sail cleanly over her head, ‘so they’re not ADVENT, ok? So why don’t we then just head down and just resupply? Gather our thoughts, figure out where we are, and just...just calm down a bit?’

‘Ah, that’s where, um,’ they were sure Cullings had meant to say more, but it had disintegrated into an inconceivable babble of procrastination. ‘You see, um, we, ah…’

‘What he means to spit out,’ Geron nearly thundered, silencing his subordinate, ‘is that my head is on a dartboard somewhere down in that little shit hole.’

There was a moment of silence as they absorbed the information, with no one quite willing to pose the question that hung in the air.

That is, no one but Scanlan Shorthalt.

‘Would you mind...elaborating on that, Geron?’

‘Yes,’ Vex added slowly, careful to maintain her distance as if she were dealing with an untamed carnivore, ‘how exactly did you, um, tick them off?’

‘Mistaken identity.’

That was all they would be able to pry out of their stubborn guide, before he started to grumble about the fact that the sun was not falling any slower just because they had grown curious.

His impatience was not assuaged in any way by their need to hide their true identities. But as Vax had pointed out just as Grog had begun trotting down the hill, none of them in their present state could have passed for an ordinary wanderer, let alone a human, in a hamlet that had every reason to shoot at strangers first and ask questions later. Especially strangers who did not appear to be of the same species, when their oppressors were technically ‘aliens’.

Ironically, it was the half-elves that would have probably blended in the easiest. Vax’s unkempt hair naturally concealed his pointed ears, particularly in the shadow of the cloak. As did Keyleth’s, although whether one was willing to regard her as ‘unkempt’ was another matter, particularly if the one had a distinct fear of sabertooth tigers. With Vex on the other hand, it meant undoing the elaborate braid that continually hung at her side. Naturally, it was an unwelcome solution that the Ranger wasted no time bemoaning, as she continually attempted to reset the longbow across her back, in the hopes it would not become tangled up at an unfortunate moment.

Even Percy; as human as he was, could not be exempt, as ‘human’ did not translate to a ‘human of Earth’. The elaborate blue jacket that so often donned his chest was bundled off into the Bag of Holding alongside any other trace of nobility that still decorated his form. Admittedly there were few that had survived his years on the road, but to a ramshackle hamlet of wanted criminals, it would only take the quickest flash of silver to begin the accusations of ‘spy!’. For now at least, his travel cloak would have to do.

It was a rather similar story with Scanlan and Pike, who would apparently pose as children for their duration in the hamlet. Ordinary children for that matter; a specification that earned Pike’s ire as she fumbled with the countless straps that kept her armor in place. Memory of the Glabrezu’s razor claws and the moment of searing pain that bisected her chest before darkness overtook her was not a very fond memory to the gnome, and ever since then, the armor she had taken as an insurance had become a second skin. Now, suddenly bereft of its weight, it was no surprise that she felt naked, and vulnerable, as she fixed the morning star firmly to her belt, ensuring it was still within easy reach before drawing her own cloak around it, concealing it from a careless eye.

The biggest issue was, quite literally, Grog.

‘No way, in Hell, or Hades’ arse are you walking in there like that,’ Simms had put bluntly. There were few who disagreed: Grog’s tremendous, barechested stature offered little comfort to any opponent of ADVENT. In fact, Geron had admitted more than once over the journey, he had nearly shot the Goliath more than once on the presumption he’d been stalked by a Muton; the same hulking creature that had nearly dashed Vax’s brains from his skull. So, walking into a resistance stronghold as they were, without anyone to vouch for them at face value this time, a few adjustments were in order.

They were also, for that matter, horrific adjustments. Squeezing a Goliath into a jacket reluctantly donated by Hawkins was already doomed to failure in the minds of half the party, but Geron was as stubborn as an ass.

And it was, at least to Scanlan Shorthalt, hilarious. In fact, he found it so amusing that it took the combined efforts of Pike and Vax to forcibly stifle his laughter; their hands clamped over his mouth until the cackle had died down to a snigger.

All of which did practically nothing to help a red-faced Grog, who seemed to be on the verge of passing out as Vex tugged upward at the ingenious metal zipper with all her might, getting it maybe an inch past the goliath’s belly, before she promptly gave up.

‘Can you move?’ She asked, barely able to stifle a giggle at the sight of their compatriot.

An audible tearing of fabric was the only answer she received, as Grog drew breath to answer. A moment later, thin veil of silence they had managed to hold thus far gave way to the choke of laughter.

There would be no second attempt; no more jackets were being volunteered, and Grog wasted no time in making it abundantly clear what would happen to the next person to try ‘throttling him’. Besides, as mutilated as it was, the torn jacket still provided a token semblance of civility to the goliath. Much as if he had simply spent many a day on the road, battling all manner of terrors, it would at least ward off immediate association with the hulking shock troopers of the tyrannical Administration.

And much to Grog’s relief, he could at least breath while doing so this time.

‘Makes you wonder why we didn’t just polymorph him again,’ Vex sighed, shaking her head too and fro as she surveyed her handiwork.

‘Really?’ Grog looked at her aghast, as if he were trying to ascertain if she was cackling inside, ‘you’re going to bring that up now? After you nearly killed me?’

‘Well,’ Keyleth offered with her hands waving about in some vague gesture of appeasement, ‘I needed to keep an eye on Trinket…’

‘Besides,’ Scanlan interjected, ‘this way was more fun.’

‘For you, stumpy,’ the goliath groaned, drawing forth another snicker.

‘If you lot are finished,’ Geron snapped, as his foot drummed the ground incessantly, ‘look for the local dealer; shouldn’t be hard to get the locals to cough up the hole he’s snuggled up into.’

‘Wait,’ Percy asked, his eyes narrowing as he digested Geron’s words, ‘did you say he’s a ‘dealer’? What are we getting for you? Oloore root?’

‘I smoke twigs in the morning, after a little brekkie,’ Geron answered with a straight face, before the unmistakable snarl of derision reawakened across his features. ‘No, Perc; he’s not a drug smuggler. Hell, I think that’s about the only thing he won’t move. But no; food, equipment, weapons and armor? That’s all fair game for him.’

‘Has he got a name?’

Geron’s face seemed to scrunch up at the question, as he seemed to wrack his memory for answers, and found the effort wanting.

‘He’s gone by many names, and I don’t think any were any more real than the last. I knew him as Will, but the chances of him sticking by that are astronomical, if I’m being honest.’

‘So then how exactly then do we find him?’

Geron gave a rather unhelpful shrug, much to Vex’s chagrin.

‘Ask around? Just...when you think you’ve found him, just tell him _ Vigilo Confido _ ; he’ll know what it means. Shouldn’t be too hard to track ‘im down anyway: he’ll be only one pedalling anything worth a dime out here anyway. Aside from Mac, if the bar’s still his.’

‘There’s a pub down there?’ Scanlan asked, his eyes already lighting up, ‘Well then, you fellas have fun digging up this dealer: I think me and Grog are gonna get some grog.’

‘Wait, what?’

‘Not you, Grog,’ Keyleth put in lightly, ‘the...nevermind.’

‘If you’re getting pissed, do it on the road. Big guy like you; they won’t hesitate to haul you out on your ass if you start hitting people.’

Grog let out a hearty rumble at Geron’s mistrust. Although, even after Grog’s confirmation, the man continued to demonstrate absolutely no sign of concern for the community at the bottom of the hill. Perhaps the feud ran both ways, they realised.

‘Just get the supplies,’ he sighed, trudging away to find the nearest shadow to start brooding in, ‘the sooner, the better. Longer we stay here, the better the chances someone from down there figure out we’re up here, and then there’ll be trouble.’

‘What on earth do you want us to get exactly?’ Vex demanded, stealing a glance back down to the little community. It seemed so small and desolated that it was a wonder they were even pausing to consider it, let alone relieve it of its belongings. ‘We’re not trafficking, I don’t know, illegal stuff, are we?’

‘Well ADVENT would call it illegal,’ mused Geron, as he turned back around. Only this time, he had a distinct slip of paper resting upon the glove of one hand, even as a short black stick danced around in the other. Like a quill, it was in the process of painting out a tapestry of brushstrokes upon the tiny parchment, but then again, its author was Geron. So ‘disaster’ may have better described the travesty as even at a distance, one had little difficulty in discerning that the message would be a true challenge to interpret, even up close.

‘...but you,’ he finished, ‘don’t like ADVENT, so who gives?’

He pressed the featherless quill hard into the paper to punctuate his point, but in his attempt for dramatic effect, Geron had seriously underestimated the strength of the slightly moist and battered paper. The quill’s tip passed straight through, tearing a neat little hole at the end of his poorly iterated message, and jammed into his glove, prompting him to not so subtly change his hands on the defiant little note. Gingerly, and trying to hold a laugh, Vex relieved him of the parchment, and spread it out before her eyes to see.

‘And you’re absolutely sure he can read this?’

‘You insinuating that my handwriting is crap?’

‘She is,’ came the sound of Cullings’ voice, ‘and I’ll second it. Looks like you used it to kill a spider.’

He shut up as soon as a rather dangerous glare met his own gaze, but his intervention had given Vex enough time to put herself out of arm's reach, extracting herself from the precarious little mess.

‘So what is it you want us to lug?’ Asked Scanlan, thankfully. Since he’d yet to actually bear witness to the sheet, nobody could actually accuse him of a sly insult on this rare occasion. Besides, he reflected ruefully, Geron had more than a few reasons to detest the little gnome, most particularly after he had ingloriously defecated into Geron’s bedroll two evenings ago. Yet the incident seemed a distant one in Geron’s eyes, as he turned an eye to the gnome, with a razor’s grin etched into only one corner of his face.

‘Guns, ammo, and all other instruments of fire and death. You lot will love it.’

* * *

 

For a town living in constant fear of an oppressive administration, it was almost too easy to get past the guard. Certainly, they’d attracted more than a few glances, but it seemed as if the two sleepy men on duty had only checked for the tell-tale heavy plate armor worn by each peacekeeper. After making sure they were speaking the common tongue, and not the strange, squawking discourse of ADVENT’s security forces, they were waved on through without so much as a customary warning that any violence would be met with even more violence.

‘They don’t seem very, professional, if you know what I mean,’ Vex muttered beneath her breath, as they huddled together to one side of the lonely street that ran the length of the small hamlet.

‘Well,’ Percy assessed, casting a critical eye over the ramshackle town, ‘I doubt they’ll have had any real training out here. Probably a militia with a few scavenged weapons, but any actual soldiers? I doubt they could put up a real fight if there was trouble at the gate.’

‘Shame,’ grumbled the Goliath, as he eyed the broadaxe in his hand.

‘We’re not here to kill them!’ Keyleth’s protest had started at a shout, but almost as soon as the words had left her mouth, she had realised the potential implications, and brought the volume down to a hiss. Already, Vox Machina had garnered a small number of curious, or downright suspicious onlookers, who were undoubtedly questioning how the bizarre band had wound up on their collective doorstep.

And if they were half as paranoid as Geron, the slightest indication that they were about to detonate a powder keg would probably spell a bloodbath. Of course, the actual victims of that bloodbath were undecided; after massacring the ADVENT garrison of District 42, the relative threat of a disorganised militia was suitably low.

Even so, civility asserted itself over pointless violence, and so for now at least, it was hoped that Vox Machina could complete their mission without actually killing anyone.

Unfortunately, that meant acquiring information, without employing a pair of rusty blades. And information is a precious commodity in troubled times; one that distrustful people rarely divulge freely to strangely clothed strangers.

In fact, the first two people they tried to probe for a lead on their ‘dealer’ had visibly shrunk on being singled out on an otherwise ordinary day, before stressing the utmost importance of their present activity. Then they had bolted off, never to be seen again. Another, who was pulled aside by none other than Keyleth, for the simple fact she had been closest to the unfortunate soul, had not even given them the courtesy of an explanation. After an inarticulate sound bordering on a squeak had escaped his lips, he’d jumped for the safety of the shadows, and disappeared before they could pursue, and there was a growing doubt that they would ever find a friendly face when the dull clunk of slightly decayed wood dropped behind them.

A woman, adorned in a ragged jacket and trousers, was in the midst of exiting her house when she spotted the band of adventurers that had taken shelter upon her porch, far too late to turn about on her heel and shut the door before they noted her presence. Her attire was patched and mottled, formed of an even grey tone that was continually disrupted by irregular splashes of darkened fabric, yet she appeared relatively fresh for the most part; her freckled cheeks brimming bright with colour for the briefest of moments, bereft of grime, before they rapidly drained of colour under the scrutiny of unnatural eyes. And casting a glance about the house, Vax in particular realized the visible efforts to retain some semblance of cleanliness to the area; the windows were free of dust, and there were only trace elements of mold plaguing the structure: far less than one might have anticipated in the shantytown. Rather, it looked more and more as if the mottled patterns in her clothing were simply the elements of the forest that were too stubborn to yield under repeated hand washes, much to their owner’s frustration.

Not that such was her ultimate concern, as she visibly compressed down into a hunch, gingerly raising one hand as if she were trying to train some feral beast.

‘Can…can I help you?’ She managed to stammer out the question, shifting to block the doorway as she turned her body to face them, as if her twig-like stature would even hamper the Goliath’s stride if he chose to knock her aside.

‘Yes, yes; we’ve been looking for some help,’ Scanlan started immediately, ignoring her obvious distress to the best of his ability. Maybe, he hoped beyond hope, she would think them blind, and recapture some semblance of control in her voice, as she stammered out an incompressible answer to the gnome’s request. ‘We’re trying to find the dealer around here; maybe you could point us to him?’

It was not an instantaneous flip, but the moment Scanlan had taken to mention their contact, the tension evaporated. Not entirely of course, as she remained on guard; watchful for any deception, but she no longer looked as if she were expecting a strike across the face.

‘You mean Will?’ A series of quick glances were exchanged, before they gave her a collective nod, and she quickly raised an arm until it was level with the ground.

‘He’s down over there,’ she told them, ‘it’s not that easy to find though; you gotta take a side street on the right, and then follow that until you find the firing range. He’ll probably be somewhere around there. Look for James’ shop: the turning is the one right after you pass it.’

She seemed rather surprised at the blank expressions she received, until Vax gently cleared his throat and reminded her of the one little fact she’d taken for granted.

‘Terribly sorry, but who exactly is James?’

The confusion transformed into terror with frightening speed, and it took no small amount of clarification from the half-elven Rogue to convince her that no harm had been done.

‘We’re just new in town!’ he exclaimed, ‘we just, well, haven’t met James yet.’

It was like walking on eggshells with the woman, as she relaxed once again, only for her blood to freeze in her veins as a voice emitted from somewhere in the gloom behind her.

‘Mom? Who is that?’

In the shadow of one of her lanky limbs, a pair of bright, brown eyes stared back at the seven wanderers with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation: something his mother clearly did not share as she rounded about with all speed.

‘Dan!’ she hissed with surprising urgency, ‘go back inside, honey. Now.’

‘Are those the soldiers?’

‘No, little man,’ Scanlan chimed immediately, ‘no, no no no no; we don’t like them very much either.’

The boy seemed to relax at those words; an example his mother could have certainly learnt from as she backed further into the shadow, apparently trying to herd him out of sight again with her foot as she kept her eyes on the company, a desperate but willful determination steeling her eyes.

‘We should go,’ Vax whispered, as he shuffled slightly until he was behind Grog’s titanic form, concealing the movement of his lips from the protective mother, ‘there’s a reason she’s got her hands behind the doorframe. I’m guessing she’s got a rifle or something else stacked against the doorframe, which probably wouldn’t be very conducive for our health.’

‘And she’s on edge,’ Percy added, concealing his own assessment with his gloved hand as he emitted a token cough, ‘I think we got everything out of her that we’re going to get. And we stay here, she’s probably gonna try to put a hole in one of us.’

‘Are you sure?’ Keyleth asked, shuffling nervously. ‘I mean, why doesn’t she want us going in the house? Could she be hiding something?’

‘What was that?’ Immediately, fearful eyes were on the strangely clothed druid; assessing: weighing the risk of leaning just a little closer to the assurance that lay against the doorframe, concealed from the invaders’ view.

‘Nothing!’ Keyleth yelped, a little too quickly to pass off for an idle slip of the tongue, ‘I just…think aloud to myself…sometimes…’

Judging from the fact that the mother’s eyebrows were knotting into a stony frown, she was not buying a word of it.

‘She does it quite a lot,’ Vax put in carefully.

‘All the time!’ boomed Grog, at a volume that nearly sent the hapless resident off her feet.

‘It can get a little bit irritating, actually.’

‘Always! In the middle of the night, on the road, yada, yada yada!’

‘Look, we’re no trouble,’ Vax went on, once the entirety of the group had finished throwing in the most unconvincing series of anecdotes to cover the Druid’s slip, ‘yes, we can be a bunch of idiots, and yes, we probably should have thought a little more before we decided to thump the Overseer in District 42. Like I said: we don’t think much, and we’ll be right out your hair, if that makes it any better. We’re just looking for…what was his name?’

‘Will,’ his sister hissed under her breath.

‘…right, Will. We’re not ADVENT, ok? I’m Vax; that’s Vex, the short guy is Scanlan, that’s Pike, Percy, Keyleth, and Grog! We’ll be out of here within an hour. Hopefully, although, that’s not counting for our luck.’

He held his breath, praying that was enough to cinch it. For a moment, it was, as the woman’s cheekbones loosed slightly, only for a strange crease to form across her lips. A smile? No, he thought to himself, more like a question forming on the lips, as she wracked her brain for some key detail.

‘District 42?’ She asked, ‘you with the resistance?’

‘Kinda; we didn’t have much of a choice after we had a slight…altercation with an ADVENT officer.’

‘He didn’t like the idea of staying alive,’ Scanlan added helpfully, ‘so naturally, we obliged.’

‘It's…a long story,’ Vax concluded, ‘more or less, yeah, we’re with the resistance?’

‘You wouldn’t happen to know someone out there, would you? Geron?’

They quickly exchanged glances at that. There was a distinct reason r was avoiding direct contact with the hamlet, and revealing their true connections with him could quickly land them in the middle of a firefight, depending on the severity of his crimes.

Except for Keyleth, who had not quite foreseen that particular set of consequences, and who always preferred to simply let the truth flow.

‘Yes, we know him; he’s…’

‘An acquaintance,’ Vex cut her off, even as her brother proceeded to half-pull, half-drag their honest druid out of earshot, ‘Cullings introduced us to him a couple of days ago, though we haven’t actually seen him or his team since.’

‘I see,’ the woman mused, almost deflated by the news she was provided, ‘well, if you see the piece of shit again, tell him I forgive him.’

‘For what, exactly?’

‘He’ll know,’ she sighed wearily, as if recalling the memory alone had been a physically taxing experience, ‘the no-good bastard. But,’ she paused, deep in thought, ‘we don’t live forever. And it's too heavy to keep pulling that around with you.’

There was a tone in her voice that brokered some finality to their conversation, that would forever taunt the curiosities of Voc Machina. But although that particular query would remain beyond their grasp, their bard was quite incapable of restraining himself from one more question.

‘Who exactly should we tell him decided to forgive him?’ he asked.

She halted mid stride, partly tempted to simply shut the door in their faces, before common decency seemed to prompt to her provide one last answer.

‘Ash,’ she said simply. ‘My name...the name is Ashley.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, it's been far, far too long. I have a long and terrible track record of getting side tracked. Terribly sorry for the immeasurably long delay, and a belated Happy New Year to you all!


	10. Meet Will

If anyone had been expecting a shop to rival the eccentric designs of their old friend Gilmore, they would have been pitifully disappointed. A seemingly endless track plodding through churned mud led only to a pair of shacks that appeared to have be held together by nothing other than sheer force of will. There was simply no other explanation as to how the structures were still sanding, with sheets of rusting iron making up one just one wall, while another was composed of slightly rotten wood that had attracted all manner of fungus and moss to finish the job. What’s more, Vex could have sworn that one or two planks had been chewed, by something with rather large teeth that she could only chalk up to the work of a beaver.

Even the signage left plenty of doubts, considering the only identifying marker was a post that had been knocked into the ground, upon which a slab of wood had been crucified with far more nails than was necessary. On that, someone with a grave lack in artistic talent had painted the words ‘Will’s WMDs’.

To be completely fair, it was little better than James’ house, which they had stumbled upon a couple of minutes past by interrogating a few other unfortunates in the street. But unlike the doctor’s house, there was no effort to welcome a customer. In fact, the compound looked visibly prepared for a full siege. A very short siege, considering a sneeze might have knocked it down, but there were still plenty of measures to give a would-be attacker pause; sharpened steel wire twisted knotted into deadly vines protected it’s flanks, and a more careful look into the surrounding forest revealed no small number of tripwires threaded between the trees like a spider’s web. Metallic tins hung at the ends of some, perhaps to provide some alarm to a defender. Others were affixed to a ring atop ominously spherical devices that seemed remarkably similar to the explosives Percy had crafted himself, and the same ones Geron had used to blow apart a squadron of ADVENT troopers.

Presumably, the purpose of those was not so much to alert, as much as it was to massacre the opposition.

Carefully, they made their way up toward the larger of the two buildings, with Vax in the lead as he scanned meticulously for any pressure plates or deadfalls that could be concealed on the muddy path, which had been paved over in the crudest of forms by simply laying down short planks of wood at irregular intervals.

But there was nothing on the main road to fear. Of course, straying even three feet of that road could have dropped one into a rather nasty pit, which Vax pointed out en route. Once concealed by dead leaves, the trap had yet to be reset after it had claimed its most recent victim: a white hare. By now of course, it was anything but white, after it had fallen headfirst into a phalanx of sharpened stakes deep enough to entrap a man.

Naturally, it was a fate no one wanted to share with the poor bunny.

In fact, by the time they reached the door, most of them expected for the door to simply swing open and behold a cannon that would ignite in Vax’s face. It was a sentiment Vax himself shared, as he hovered by the door, trying to ascertain the direction from which the attack would come from, until a booming voice emitted from the corrugated iron.

‘It’s open,’ it snapped curtly. Then, after a pause, it added in a partly annoyed tone ‘it’s alright: the door ain’t rigged.’

‘Well I’m sorry,’ Scanlan retorted, ‘you’d forgive us if we weren’t a little careful after seeing what you have on display out here.’

‘If it makes you feel better, I can kill you from here. Now come in, or piss off.’

With a shrug, Vax threw caution to the winds and turned the doorknob. To his eternal surprise, absolutely nothing happened. No cannon blast: no pitfall, and no dragon waiting on the far side of the door ready to turn him into charcoal, and he stepped on through entirely unscathed.

Inside, it was almost as if they had stepped into another house. The walls were composed of true timber: not the sorry excuse they had observed outside, and upon each wall, row upon row of rifles, pistols and other countless machines of war lay naked for the eye to see. Several tables had been set up against the base of each wall as well, showcasing what could only be described as enough ammunition to take on an army, drawing an envious gaze from Percy, as he ogled the unending parade of technology.

On the far wall, there were more items hanging from the wall, only these were not weapons supported by two iron prongs driven into the timber. These were mantles: trophies, each decorating a kill. A couple barely drew a moment’s notice, like the pair of deer which hung on either side of one window. Others were slightly more exoitic, like the head of a bear which lay on the far side of the room, which earned little praise from Vex, as she turned about before the mouse in her pocket could see his kin in such a state.

But it was the wall that hung directly opposite them that housed the most peculiar specimens. Peculiar, and terrifying. There was a pink faced horror remarkably similar to the one that had nearly broken their rouge’s back, with a single hole drilled into its forehead. There were also several nearly skeletal beings on display, minus their bodies: creatures that looked as if their skin were naught but elastic that had then been pulled tightly over a skull. And on the right, a rather nasty arachnid’s head was mounted, with its mandibles still stained by what could only be assumed to be the creature’s blood, that had spilled when a bullet barreled into it’s right eye.

And right beneath this particular specimen was where they found the man known as Will. With long, untrimmed hair that fell all over the place in a shaggy mess, he seemed to be in the process of cleaning some kind of metallic pipe with a towel, and continued to do so in their presence. But while he certainly was not built like a tank, akin to Grog, there was still only lean muscle to be found on his being. Almost like their Rogue, there was a wiry strength to his figure that Geron certainly had not possessed, and he slipped about the counter with a nearly casual swagger. Considering he was unarmed and faced with not one but seven fully armed adventurers, the act betrayed him as either a complete idiot, or a particularly dangerous man. And he did not strike the men and women of Vox Machina as an idiot.

‘Well! About damn time, if you ask me! What brings a cheery lot like you out here on this fine day?’

‘We’re here for a friend,’ Percy started, before he realized the exact implications of his statement, and retreated in the same breath. ‘More like acquaintance.’

‘A rather unfriendly acquaintance,’ Scanlan was unable to keep from adding.

‘And did this here acquaintance have a name?’

‘He told us to tell you _ Vigilo Confido _ .’

Pike held her breath as she said the words, praying that she’d pronounced the foreign dialect correctly. But it seemed to satisfy Will sufficiently, and with a chuckle, he put the pipe and cloth down.

‘Alright, so you didn’t just torture some poor sod for my address; they actually sent you. Which sorry lot was the one that sent you? Beatrice’s outfit? I told her, those charges aren’t meant to be tossed around like a tyre swing! That shit? Not my fault.’

‘Not exactly,’ Percy admitted, intrigued by the incident Will had let slip, ‘does the name Geron ring a bell?’

The wry and only partly serious suspicion in Will’s face seemed to clear up at the mention of the name.

‘Ah, yes; I know Geron. Bit of an insufferable paranoid twit at times, keeps the dagger on his back with the hilt to the right like the stubborn twit he is, am I right?’

He was met with a series of nods.

‘Always told him; you can’t betray your strong arm. If you got only one blade, why the hell are you gonna put it on the dominant hand? There’s no point getting into a gutter fight if you can end it right at the start.’

‘You can always carry two,’ Vax responded slyly, and for a moment, Will turned his undivided attention to the Rogue, noting the dry smile that met him from under the hood.

‘In your case, three, I can tell. Anyway; let’s cut to the chase, because knowing Geron, he didn’t send you out here to socialize now, did he?’

‘He asked us to give you this list,’ Vex responded, holding out the sorry parchment, ‘although, you might have a bit of trouble reading it.’

‘Everyone has trouble reading Geron’s writing,’ Will muttered sincerely, as he spread the sheet before him, mumbling to himself as he went. Naturally, it took him a good couple of minutes to decipher some of the tragedies of literature, but eventually, he seemed confident enough to disappear into the back room, and return with two crates of unmarked items.

‘What exactly is this?’ Vex asked, even as Grog started forward to being trying to cram them into the Bag of Holding.

‘Not much in these,’ Will admitted, rummaging a ragged assortment of items from behind the desk, every-so-often tossing another piece onto the table to add to Grog’s endeavors, ‘couple of rations; some 7.62 rounds, a lot of grenades; how many of you are there exactly?’

‘Oh, quite a lot,’ Vex grinned broadly, ‘there’s quite a few of us in the woods; more than enough to handle ADVENT.’

‘Uh huh,’ the dealer nodded, ‘which really translates to maybe three, maybe five other poor saps, huh? Not counting you seven.’

‘Psh, when do numbers really matter? It’s quality, not quantity, Will.’

‘Ah;  _ Will _ ,’ he corrected her, with a single finger held out, admonishing the error. An error that seemed practically non-existent.

‘Um, okay, Will…’

‘No;  _ Will _ . Whe-hill’

It was then that Vex noticed the little accent she was being forced to comply with. In reality, adding a slightly suppressed ‘h’ into the name was hardly going to change much, but for the while at least, she’d humor him.

‘Fine,  _ Will _ , but like I said; numbers don’t bring the game home.’

‘Nah, they’re just for trampling the opposition. Quality is just in charge of cremating what’s left.’

Vex gave him a careful look, trying to assess just how much of that blunt acceptance was coming from experience when Keyleth did what Keyleth did best: asking the obvious.

‘How much fighting have you done, Will? I mean, personally seen. Geron mentioned a war several years back: were you…‘

‘The unification war, ADVENT would have you believe.’

It seemed that Keyleth had struck a rather raw nerve, considering how the man seemed to close upon those words, muttering incessantly under his breath with all manner of obscenities for the Administration. ‘More like a fucking steamroller, with a little genocide tossed in, just for funsies.’

‘If you don’t mind me asking, what exactly happened back then?’

It was all too evident that Will  _ did  _ mind talking about his experiences of the conflict, but unlike Geron at least, he was willing to at least bare a tight smile and stomach the thought.

‘ET happened,’ he answered simply. ‘With his rowdy mates. Our governments gave us guns and told us to ‘stop them’; we tried and we got squished. That was twenty years ago, and by God, half the people alive don’t even remember what the hell they did to us. All the idiots you see now in the cities? All young twits who were too young to remember when ADVENT shot their mother; they grow up, and ADVENT turns up on their doorstep offering free housing and top range healthcare. Pack of imbeciles; the only ones with any sense got pasted a long time back, and the rest of us are out here, just holding on to the world we fought for. Story of my life, huh?’

There was a collective pause as their host seemed to droop low, collapsing gently into a convenient chair as he recomposed himself, obviously swimming in memories he had no wish to recall. Naturally, Keyleth was on the verge of trying to make up for the blunder, but it was only now that she realized any more questions on the matter would probably only trouble Will even further.

Finally, it was Vex who steered the conversation back to calmer waters.

‘So,’ she started uneasily, ‘this is all for Geron?’

‘Yep; be careful handling the explosives by the way.’ He pointed indiscriminately at one of the boxes, before he realized how vague he was being, and quickly rummaged through the pack. Eventually, he emerged clutching three differently shaped boxes each about the size of a palm: two rectangular, and one a pentagon.

‘These,’ he gestured with the rectangles, ‘are C4 ad T4. Practically identical, but T4 tends to be a little more…volatile, so don’t go dragging it over rocks unless you want to be turned into a crater.’

‘This one,’ he continued, waving the pentagon with a little more force than one might have exercised with heavy explosives, ‘is X4. You do not want this going off in your pocket, period. This one charge? He’s enough to nuke this entire compound, and a bit of the forest in the same go. ADVENT’s fortified installations? They’ll cry if they see you coming at them with this. Just don’t do something stupid like using it for suicide: there are far cleaner, and cheaper, methods.’

‘Yikes,’ muttered Pike, even as he passed the last explosive into her hands to survey, ‘how volatile is this one?’

‘Surprisingly stable for how much it packs,’ Will admitted, somewhat spoiling their previous image of a handheld nuclear device, ‘Even plasma will just melt it; no detonation. But, um, extreme heat coupled with a blast wave, like a grenade going off? You want to be far, far...actually, nevermind. You’ll probably be flattened before you could get far enough. Just don’t try diving on a grenade: it won’t end well. For your mates, I mean.’

‘How did you make this stuff?’ Percy had to ask it. ‘I mean, I’ve made some bombs in the past but how did you-‘

‘Good eyes, and a careful hand,’ Will told him simply. Then he let the wry grin break through and he conceded. ‘There’s only three people who could properly make X4, and one of them is dead. Pity that; old man always had a knack for making the unthinkable.’

‘He died?’

‘Wasn’t a bullet, if that’s what you’re asking. No, it’s like I said; we all die someday. Raymond…he was already old when the war started. Surprised he lived as long as he did, if I’m being honest. What with pissing ADVENT off and all. Now it’s just me, and little Lil.’

‘Who’s Lil?’ Vex asked, cocking her head to one side in some confusion.

‘If my hunch is right,’ Will mused, more to himself than his guests, ‘you’ll be meeting her soon enough; there’s only one reason Geron would leave District 42, and only one place he’d head. Don’t worry; she doesn’t bite. Probably get along splendidly with you lot, particularly if there’s any machinists amongst you.’

‘Well, we certainly have one,’ the Ranger grinned, gently nudging Percy with an elbow, ‘maybe you’ll be able to put together a real death machine.’

‘So, how does it run?’ Percy asked insistently, even as Pike passed it on for his own analysis. ‘What’s the main component? Black powder?’

‘I’ll let Lil fill you in there,’ Will answered carefully. ‘And come on; I’m a rarity, aren’t I? One of two in seven billion? I’m not selling trade secrets! I got a business to run, dammit!’

He let loose a guarded laugh at his own joke, before he disappeared back out into the storeroom beyond, leaving his customers to peruse his collection to their heart’s content.

Or rather, to note the rather concerning absence of their Rogue, who appeared to have quite literally disappeared into thin air as soon as their host’s back was turned. 

‘Vax,’ his sister whispered through the thin smile she continued to wear, in the event Will made an unannounced return, ‘where the hell are you?’

* * *

 

Vax did not dare to answer as the dog sniffed the air, not quite sure whether to growl a warning, for fear of appearing inept. 

Naturally, it had not taken long for Vax to determine that Will was a man with his secrets, so he’d decided to put his particular set of skills to use almost the instant Will was turned by slipping back out the door. 

He was not quite sure as to what he was looking for; Will certainly did not smell of a spy; a mole designed to rat them out to ADVENT as soon as they had appeared, but one could never be too sure. And even if his sympathies lay beyond the administration, there was still a good deal more to his book than his admittedly detailed cover revealed. 

Unfortunately, in keeping an eye out for pitfalls and other deathtraps, Vax had failed to spot the rather sizable bulldog in Will’s garden. Uncollared and unchained, he was almost tempted to pass it off as a wild animal, until he’d spotted a makeshift kennel barely a meter away from it’s resting place. Whatever the mangy creature was, it had called Will’s deadly compound home. 

Too far into his escapade to back away without being spotted, Vax could only freeze behind an overturned cluster of blue barrels, as the mutt sniffed the air, trying to locate the presence that had intruded upon its master’s grounds. 

Luckily, he was still downwind, but with his luck, that could change in the blink of an eye, and Vax briefly considered tearing away a small fragment of his clothing, to toss in the opposite direction before he rolled in the mire that surrounded him. It would be an unpleasant experience, but it might at least mask his scent whilst leading the guard dog away.

If another had not intervened.

‘Oz! What’re you up to now, you useless mutt?’

Immediately, the dog seemed to shrivel up as Will strode out the back of his house into the small clearing. 

He’d only exited the shop for a minute, but already, Vax could plainly see a fresh black webbing had been drawn across his right leg; one that bore remarkable similarities to the holsters Geron had employed amongst his unit. He was armed, but for the moment, calm.

‘Come on, Oz; really? I told you; I needed at least one alive!’

Edging out of his cover, Vax managed to make out a couple of mangled forms at the base of Will’s boots; right before the now very guilty-looking dog. With bushy tails being the only real mark of identification available to him, he hazarded they were once squirrels. At least before Will’s dog had gotten a hold of them.

‘What am I gonna do with you,’ the store owner sighed, as he dropped down to one knee. Then, with a smile creeping into his features, he seemed unable to stomach seeing his friend in such a sorry state for any longer, and he gave the bulldog a gentle pat across it’s head. ‘I’m going to have to set the snares again, aren’t I?’

The dog only licked his hand in reply.

‘Just this time, don’t be a greedy bugger!’

He laughed to himself and strode away, heading toward the small shack at the edge of his little hideaway, never witnessing the spectre that shadowed his every footstep. Within moments of the door bolting shut behind Will, there was an audible clash of steel, a muffled curse, followed by a scrape of iron biting into wood as it was lifted off the weathered planks. Another few minutes passed, and without warning, the door flew open, and Will emerged; another crate swinging wildly between his arms as he merrily trotted off back to his shop.

Only this time, the door never closed behind him, as a cloaked Vax held out a hand to stop it’s creaky path, leaving it slightly ajar as the Rogue plunged into the dark, his eyes adjusting quickly to the dim of the shack. 

The sizable cracks in the walls were already admitting enough light to navigate unheard, and even if that was not enough, Will had deigned to leave behind a lantern that still flickered with a minute flame. 

Assuming that could only mean Will was intending to make a return trip at any moment, Vax worked quickly, his eyes whipping about the room, taking in every possible detail, and maybe weighing the market value of more than a couple of items. 

It appeared to be a workshop. True; it was a pathetically diminutive workshop that would probably kill it’s operator someday, but it was a workplace nevertheless. A rifle not too different to the Bad News appeared to be preening for the interloper on the central desk, practically begging for use in the near future. Unlike the Bad News though, this one seemed to have a rather elaborate spying glass affixed to where the user might place his eye, and Vax made a mental note to pass that little idea on to Percy when he got out.

Beyond that, there were more weapons laid out on a table on the far side of the room. Nothing there was quite as large as the central showpiece, nor as shiny, but as Vax ran his fingers over the instruments, he could tell the weapons were still maintained as well as his own daggers. Well oiled and cleaned, the grime he had initially observed was simple paint plastered over the once glimmering steel; steel that could, in a pinch, reveal a stalker to his unwary prey with a single flash of light. Just as he’d keep his own blades tucked away, where they would find no light to betray his position, it appeared Will had a similar train of thought. 

But as for the man, there was practically nothing to behold. Aside from a couple more trophies, including a tremendous, pink fleshed head with a maw of countless teeth that would have put everything outside to shame, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s face seemed to have been destroyed entirely with excessive firepower. All Vax found was signs of a man who took far too much pride in his ability to take down extraterrestrial beasts.

Until he tugged at the drawers beneath the desk, and found them to be unresponsive. He tried again, to no effect, and immediately, his interest was piqued. 

A lockpick later, and the drawer capitulated to the rogue. Who might have simply dove straight into its contents, had he not spent the last couple years of his life dodging angry guards, but more often than not, gaining access to places designed to kill interlopers at every turn. A careful search quickly revealed a small string attached to the underside of the drawer; one that led straight to a grenade’s pin. Evidently, Will was taking few chances, albeit few chances against idiots who had never begun to comprehend a booby trap.

Thankfully, Vax was not one, and after slitting the wire and allowing it to drop without tugging the pin out of the bomb, he could at last take stock of his findings; the ultimate unveiling nothing more than a piece of cloth.

It was a cloth with a peculiar design, Vax admitted, somewhat begrudgingly. An upside down pentagon had been stenciled into the orange cloth. Within which, a cross was drawn upon what appeared to be the top of a small sphere. None of which made much sense to the half-elf; he could certainly discern the shapes of three stars lining the upper half of the insignia, but that did little to translate the enigma.

The only element that might have made any sense was the phrase at the very top of the design. A phrase Vax recalled, but had no way of actually understanding it. 

_ Vigilo Confido _ .

Somewhat irritated at the find, Vax was on the verge of departing, when he noticed a shape beneath the flag. Half-anticipating another trap, he gingerly lifted it aside, to unveil a small book bound in black leather. 

Sadly, Will did not seem to be one of those in favor of diaries, as Vax would quickly learn. Rather, the entire book was bound with pictures. Photographs of men and women; most of the time in a similar, beige uniform that looked both uncomfortably large, as well as paper thin. The same faces appeared here and there, with a rather clean shaven Will even making the odd appearance here and there, but as he delved deeper through the account, Vax could not help but notice the number of faces was decreasing. Where there were once twenty or even thirty faces, there might be three.

The last entry itself was a map. A map covered in scrawls that were appeared remarkably neat for hurried scratchings. But unable to make any sense of the geography, Vax decided against an orientation session while he could still be accused of breaking and entering. Geron could probably tell them enough when they returned, he thought.

Slipping the journal into the folds of his jacket, and pocketing two, or maybe four, of the firearms laid out on the desk alongside several clips of ammunition, Vax gave the centerpiece one last wistful glance. It was tempting, definitely, to simply waltz off with the weapon, but he would probably have to stand in front of Will again before they departed, and there was no way he’d be able to shove that behind his back. 

Slightly disappointed with the cruel anchor of reality, Vax reset the lock and trap on the drawer. Then, drawing one last breath acrid metal, he pulled the cowl back over his head, and slipped out. 

* * *

 

‘-hundred and thirty rounds a minute, with enough stopping power to put a berserker back into hell. You likey?’

Keyleth only nodded in partial comprehension, but unfortunately, Will seemed to take that as an affirmation that she was willing to part with her coin, and he slapped the oversized pipe onto the growing collection on the desk.

Of course, Vox Machina had always welcomed the opportunity to get their hands on new means of mass destruction, but as store owner continued to spout off endless streams of numbers in association with each firearm, there was a growing discomfort around their growing purchases. Considering that the average businessman charged vast sums for quality, and Will seemed to be in the business of apocalyptic quality, they could only begin to guess the sum of their collective armaments they had each picked out, and Vex’s expression was growing darker by the minute.

Grog had been somewhat disgruntled at the absence of any blunt objects designed to batter skulls into a pulp, but it seemed Will accommodated many tastes, after he had emerged with a small cut down tube attached to a thick disk upon it’s belly. He’d called it a grenade launcher, but the name was not remembered by any of their number: only the massive fireball he’d produced in the backyard after promising them a ‘trial run’. Coupled with a stock Will had reinforced with several weights, until it could easily double as a club; Grog was nearly reduced to tears of admiration as it was laid on the desk.

Keyleth had fared little better in the buying game, after she had stumbled upon a small cache of oddly shaped charges. Oddly shaped charges that Will had decided to market as ‘napalm’. Another trial later, and the bumbling half-elf could already see a thousand applications of such monstrosities.

Even Vex had not escaped the allure entirely. Will had at first been skeptical of the bow she carried, until the Ranger had decided to give him her own demonstration. Partly out of simple pride, and partly to keep Will’s eyes on the range, and not on his precious shed as her idiot brother slinked back outside to rejoin his allies. To that end, Will had unveiled his own collection of modified broadheads for her perusal. From wickedly serrated arrows, to a point that detonated on impact with a most unfortunate target, it was too tempting not to invest at least a portion of her funds into the gadgets he held before her eyes.

Remarkably, Percy had restrained himself from making too many purchases, if only because he intended to put their concepts directly into the Bad News almost as soon as they were back in the woods. Instead, he’d used the time to get a better look into each weapon; prying apart it’s insides and learning all he could from the ‘dealer’, who had even offered to field strip one in order to educate him on it’s cleaning protocol. The experience was a fruitful education, but sadly, it would require a few investments nevertheless. Specifically, he’d elected to purchase a couple of magazines to get a better look at the various types of ammunition one sale, since he could hardly try to pry one apart in Will’s presence.

Scanlan and Pike on the other hand, having rarely relied on physical weapons in the past to begin with, were not quite at the point of salivation. But even so, they found more than a few items that tickled some interest: the lightweight pistols were easy to manipulate in a single hand, and it did not take long for Pike to try supplementing her shield with a firearm in her usually free hand. Although reloading was problematic, the payoff was palpable.

As for Scanlan, the Bard was one of simple tastes. Will had obliged with a bandolier of nearly a dozen grenades, that the gnome was already modeling, long before it had even come to payment.

And as the pile grew: as they added the ammunition; the holsters and the tools to maintain the gear they would soon hold, the air around Vex seemed to be growing hotter, as beads of perspiration dotted her brow.

‘So,’ she asked, forcing the words through gritted teeth, ‘how much would this all come to?’

‘Well that depends on how you’re intending to pay,’ came an answer that offered neither confirmation of her fears, nor relief.

‘You wouldn’t mind taking the currency of tremendous gratitude, would you, my man?’

Despite the proposal, Will let out a short bark of laugh at that proposal. But it did not stop him from spoiling that effect by ending the grunt with a short ‘no’.

‘Look, what do you have that I could use, eh? We don’t use credits out here; it’s all bartering. No set currency, I-‘

He tailed off, quite perplexed as to why all eyes in the room had seemed to shift to the half-elven Ranger at his mention of the word ‘barter’, and despite his confidence, Will could not suppress the thought that he had made a grave mistake.

‘Well,’ Vex started, ‘we’ve got a couple of dragon scales left.’

‘Bullshit isn’t a currency, lass. Sorry, but I-‘

He stopped mid-sentence as Grog pried a rather distinctive set of scales out of the pouch at his side, and dropped it onto the desk for Will to assess.

‘And he was not easy to kill, so…bear that in mind; the rarity of this is…well, you’d understand if I told you there’s only a handful of people in the entire world that could get that for you. And they’re all standing in this room.’

She could plainly see he was still trying to determine if it was all a massive scam, and with a groan, Vex retreated, wracking her brains for her next card. Of course, dragon scale would have been a trump card, if the subject actually understood it’s rarity, considering very few dragons appreciate treasure hunters attempting to flay them for their armored flesh. And that very, very few dragons are incapable of handling an army, much less a band of seven travellers.

‘We’ve also got some gold limbs, if that interests you.’

‘Wait, what?’

‘Specifically two arms, a leg, a slightly damaged torso, and…and a mostly intact head?’

It was a stretch, considering that when Grog had buried his axe in Anagyros’ invention, he had not been thinking of the monster’s market value at the time. Subsequently, in addition to a separated head, there was also three six inch gorges carved diagonally across the golden sculpture’s face, where the waraxe had swung repeatedly into the creature’s head in answer to its refusal to die.

Will though, did not seem fazed by the damage, if only because he had stopped listening at the word ‘gold’.

‘Gold’s too soft for my use,’ he answered sharply, ‘sorry; it might have fetched you a good price a while back, but nowadays, steel and iron are pretty much the only things of worth. And lead.’

‘Steel?’

‘Yeah; you shit steel, I ship that off to Lil to turn into more guns; she gives me more toys to distribute: positive growth cycle, you know? If you got some, we’ll work out a trade.’

‘Is this the same Lil who we’re going to meet?’

‘Of course.’

‘So,’ Vex went on with a grin, ‘why don’t we just sell it straight to Lil?’

‘First off, that’s just plain rude, what with cutting out the middleman? Second, Lil doesn’t do business with newcomers, period. Getting her trust cost me quite a few things, and I doubt you’d be willing to go to the same lengths, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with selling to me.’

He seemed content with that argument, completely failing to realize who he was dealing with, as Vex readied her own riposte.

‘Look, this war of yours?’ the Ranger started, casting a critical hand over the ramshackle displays, ‘You’re not winning it; that much is obvious. And you people look like you could use everything you could get, regardless of where it came from. You telling me this Lil would say no to a fresh pile of materials? Even if it came from us?’

The confidence seemed to dissipate in a puff of smoke, as Will began to fidget about once again, twisting the thumb of his right glove repeatedly over and under his other fingers, like a tick, as he mulled over the thought.

‘Is this the bit where you demand a better deal?’ He asked despondently.

‘Depends if there is a better deal.’

Another pause, before he finally folded capitulated.

‘Show me the steel, and I’ll see what it’s worth. And yes! Friend’s price. Not gutter-rat price, alright?’

There was an shared sigh of relief from the company; partly in thanks to Vex’s stubborn nature, and partly in thanks that the duel was finally over. Vex’s economic bouts did not tend to bode too well with the more impulsive of their number, even as Grog began tearing out a pile of junk to rival that which they would soon be purchasing. Every blade, every shield, every helmet they had pillaged from brave fools who had thought to lighten the pockets of Vox Machina. Equipment they had practically no use of, and had only been dragging around in the hopes that one day, they might be shipped off at a half decent price.

Now it seemed, that day had arrived, as Will’s eyes gleamed with envy at their trove.

‘Not bad,’ he muttered, visibly attempting to control himself in the hopes he could salvage the visage of a disinterested buyer, ‘bit rusty, some of them, but I could work with most of it…anything else?’

‘Just one last little bugger,’ Grog grunted, before he practically threw the ravaged steel brother of their golden bounty at Will’s head. He had really meant to toss it onto the table in a display of their own disinterest, but the rust bucket had proven heavier than he’d first anticipated. So Grog had responded with the only means he knew how: try, hit, or in this case pull a lot harder.

The result was a resounding clash of steel, and for a moment, more than a few of the adventurers wondered if they were still entitled to their purchase even after killing the shop owner.

But a severely delayed shriek from under the metal carcass put an end to those thoughts, and soon, Will was back on his feet.

‘Where on good earth did you get that?’ He asked, remarkably calmly for a man who had nearly been decapitated.

‘Long story,’ Keyleth admitted, with an awkward grin that Will only took passing notice of, before returning to assessing it’s net worth.

‘Well, it’s still in pretty fair condition. Fine: throw in a couple of those scales, and you have yourself a deal.’

‘How much is all of this actually worth?’ Vex could not contain herself from asking, ‘in credits? That is it, isn’t it? What they used in the cities?’

‘All this?’ Will let out a hearty laugh in response to that query. ‘Zero! Nothing!’

He was still laughing when he saw the positively murderous glare in Vex’s eyes, and he quickly moved to elaborate before he could be gutted for scamming a band of people with very sharp knives.

‘I think what I meant to say was that you can’t get it in the cities. Period. ADVENT’s already pissed enough people off, but sadly they aren’t in the mind of arming their enemies as a show of good faith. Besides, a product’s price is determined by two things; number one, how greedy the man behind the counter is. And then number two; manufacturing costs. Now I’m a little above profit, thank you very much, so that would leave only number two. And, um, I don’t actually know the ‘number two’ for these particular weapons, because I did not actually manufacture these, per se.’

‘You stole them, didn’t you?’

‘Um, not all of them?’ Those ones,’ he started, pointing to incendiary devices beside Keyleth, ‘came from Lil, as did the ammo. But those pistols and rifles?’ He pointed to the stack of weapons intended for Geron, ‘those came from a particular warehouse. In District 38.’

‘So you stole them?’

‘I prefer the term liberate; better PR, if you know what I mean.’

‘So if they cost nothing, then why the hell are we even paying you for it?’

‘Shipping and handling?’

‘What?’

‘Compensation for labor costs,’ Will continued with a cheeky grin. ‘For the most strenuous task of actually liberating this shit from ADVENT when I get the chance. And also moving it over here.’

‘From the shelf?’ Pike demanded, perplexed.

‘What can I say? I got a bad back.’

‘I thought you weren’t interested in profit though, Will.’

‘Well, Vax, the worker does not get a profit now, do they? They operate, they suffer, and they are compensated for it. Profit is the fat little shit at the top of the ladder who twiddles his thumbs all day, right?’

‘But can’t you say the worker is working for a profit as well? So what gives?’

Will did not seem to have anything clever to respond to that, as his logic seemed to evaporate around him.

‘Whatever, Vex’ he sighed, ‘I work for a living, alright? Now take you shit and piss off. I’ve got other…stuff to do.’

‘You mean twiddle your thumbs, boss man?’

Try as he might, Will seemed lost for words as the stout little gnome threw his own head back in laughter as the little man strode back out of his establishment, followed in short order by the hulking brute, who seemed to teeter too and fro as he attempted to shovel the pile of metal into a little pouch as he went. Behind him, the red haired lady followed, giving a little conciliatory wave as she went, followed by the ashen haired machinist and the other little one in heavy plate. And right behind them, the two cloaked troubles followed in suit; the tight fisted woman with a feather threaded behind her ear, and her brother.

At that, Will made a mental note to double check nothing had gone missing. One could never be too careful, especially around people like this. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In reparations for the prolonged delay; here's another double upload. Enjoy, and please don't hesitate to let me know where I may improve!


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